Everything is UP! 📈⬆️
This is the first market update post in which only one of the tracked statistics had a decrease in either the 1-month or 12-month changes. But is that a good thing?? Let’s talk about it…
As a reminder, these numbers only reflect the transactions that occurred in Benton and Washington County; which accounts for 87.6% of all closed dollars in the Northwest Arkansas MLS (about 8 out of every 9 transactions).
The median days on market change from April to May is the only metric that saw a decrease. However, that is generally considered a good thing because that means houses are taking less time to find a buyer. Interesting note about days on market, we have seen a slight decrease each month for the last 3 months (as expected) as we enter spring, but all of those months have been higher than their corresponding month 1 year prior. Meaning, we’re seeing the typical springtime market activity up-tick, but thus far, 2025 sales are taking more days to sell then 2024.
Perhaps that could be a sign of less buyers in the market than last year, however, months of inventory has stayed the same; an indicator that the pace of active listings to closed listings is holding steady. In order for that to be true and given that new and active listings have increased in 2025 vs 2024, the number of buyers in the market has to be increasing at the same rate. So, in this case, a higher day on market is more likely a sign that buyers are writing offers with longer closing dates, since the “quick close” (popular in the peak covid-mania days) isn’t the term that sellers currently care about most.
In terms of pricing inflation, home prices are seeing a slight increase on average, but no drastic changes as the median sales price has held pretty steady for the last few months. This is a good thing for buyers trying to plan for home purchases.
Overall performance, the total number of closed transactions increased by more than 100 transactions from last month, accounting for the almost $50M more in sales volume. This was still a very solid month for the NWA residential real estate market.