Bentonville Market Snapshot

We break down why Bentonville remains the crown jewel of Northwest Arkansas and how culture, jobs, and outdoor life keep pulling people in. We share the latest Bentonville housing numbers, explain what new construction is doing to the market, and talk through why we think the next decade stays busy.
• Bentonville’s growth drivers from Walmart’s new campus to Crystal Bridges expansion 
• Downtown shifting from a quaint square to a true urban core 
• Bikeable living and how it changes daily life 
• Food scene momentum from farmers market to James Beard buzz 
• Current market stats including average prices, inventory, months of supply, and list-to-sale ratio 
• New construction across price points and where it’s concentrated 
• Why job density and lower operating costs attract relocations 
• What continued investment could mean for Bentonville and surrounding cities 
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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Welcome to NWA and Beyond, your real estate podcast. This is Carter Clark. My name is Russell King. And we're going to go through today Bentonville as we're going through the market update up and down the corridor. So let's start with Bentonville, Russell, which uh I think a lot of people would consider the crown jewel of Northwest Arkansas. Yeah, some call it the mountain biking capital of the Ozarks. That's right. Home of the Fortune 1, Walmart.

What Fuels Bentonville Growth

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Yes. You know, Bentonville continues to, you know, their market continues to show resilience while there are some you know stabilizations compared to some other towns, but it's also a continued uh growth in new construction and prices and growth and all that. So, you know, there's a lot to Bentonville.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

Yeah, there's a lot of things that have really driven uh what's happening up there, right? You got the Walmart home office, that expansion, the 350-acre new home campus, which is absolutely amazing. Uh and then it goes into the culture, the art stuff that's going on in Bentonville.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Oh man, the the world's first bikeable office building, the ledger.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

It was new and unique last year. Alice Walton's doing her School of Medicine, which is uh just started her first class, I believe. Yeah. Um, and it's really unbelievable the things it's doing with it. But I mean, all the mountain bikes have drawn in so many people here. And then that along with Crystal Bridges, the momentary, uh, all the arts that have been here now for a while, and she's doubling the size of Crystal Bridges, which is just unbelievable to think about.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah, some uh some other things like uh, you know, we talked we could talk about downtown a little bit, the evolution and kind of the why. The downtown regions for sure are shifting with a you know a s this from the uh quaint square to really a sophisticated kind of urban core. Uh the hard on main, the new massive uh, you know, kind of a mixed-use development on the square. The bike-in culture's, you know, we kind of mentioned that, but that's a that's a huge ability for a lot of people to say, I'm gonna leave my car, my truck at home, ride my bike to to and from work everywhere to a food truck to eat lunch, you know. It's just uh it just uh makes a little more lively community for sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:26

And the food in downtown now is so unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

Man, we live South Fayetteville, but we go up there all the time to eat.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Oh, it's so great. Um there's a couple more James Beard uh nominated chefs up there. You got Matthew Cooper at Conifer and then uh uh Yeos. Oh, yeah, Yos. Um there's really cool stuff going on up there. Farmers Market on the square every Saturday in Bentville. I remember when I started, you could have bought the whole Bentville Square for two million bucks. I mean, come on. And now, you know, you couldn't buy ten square feet for two million bucks. It's nuts.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

You're not far off.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

I mean, it is just crazy, but it's really cool because it is really a culture in Bentonville that's not just for mountain bikers, not just for artsy, not just for, you know, the Walmart home office, but it's really a a great town for everybody, from the young professionals, the singles to the families. It's just a really great vibe in Bentonville.

SPEAKER_00 3:29

Yeah, I I don't know if any other cities are looking for what do we need. I mean, I think Bentonville kind of has it all. That's right.

Market Numbers And Inventory

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, it's a really fun place from whether you're a socialite and want to be in downtown or an active family in a neighborhood. So let's dig in a little bit uh to kind of what's happening with the numbers um in Bentonville, Russell. So what are we looking at as far as number of homes on the market right now in Russellville? I mean, in excuse me, in Bentonville, not Russellville.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. I'm gonna do this kind of a two-prong. I want to kind of look at Benton County and just see the difference of all right, so in Benton County specifically, list price is 484,294. In Bentonville City, right, six hundred and one thousand two hundred and forty-six. That's your average list price over the last 12 months.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

And there's four hundred and ninety-one listings active in Bentonville right now.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

That's right. So, uh and a three-month supply, or I'm sorry, three point nine months call it four month supply of inventory. So 125 sales a month, and you know, I might mention that the list to sales price ratio is 98%. So the average sales price, uh, average, I'm the I'm sorry, the yeah, the Bentonville specific, average sales price,$591,536.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

$261 a square foot is what a house will go for in Bentonville.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

Yep. And compared to really this time last year, we're up about four and a quarter percent almost.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yeah, yeah. So the average sales price in Bentonville is up four percent. You know, a lot of that is due to what all is just happening there between the medical school, between the arts, between uh the bike ability, like there's so much stuff. The new campus, there's it's just so much stuff that's drawing people to Bentonville.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

And there are major things that draw people, you know. I think, well, I don't like the medical industry. Okay, do you like the food industry? Right. You know, do you do you like access to your job? You know, what whatever it is, it's a big deal to whoever it's a big deal to. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

And and a lot of people are coming in here, and it's just a great place. There's way more people now that come just to visit Bentonville than I would have ever dreamed of 20 years ago. Between the bikes and the arts and food.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Yeah. Not to mention, you know, the Hollywood stuff, you know, the the um Bentonville Film Festival. Yeah. So Hollywood's coming here, man.

New Construction Neighborhood Rundown

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah, that's wild. That's wow. Um, so then there's new construction that's really an engine for what's happened in Bentonville over the last few years. So you got um some things like what are happening out in Osage Hills that's a Brentham community. It's uh 350 up to basically 450. Uh, you got Aurora that's got a number of different builders in there in the 650 range. You got Riverwalk that's 550 plus, you got Scissortail that's 800,000 plus. There's also some Schubert Mitchell uh neighborhoods, yeah, like Hope Hill. Yep, and some um D.R. Horton stuff like Magnolia Crossing. Uh Buffington's got some subdivisions out there on Morningstar. So there's lots of new construction still driving out there. Um and this doesn't even include what's happening in the Centerton. So you go you go just a little west of Bentonville, and there's tons of new construction that's occurred over the last 10 years. Um, and this is just what's happening in Bentonville proper.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Yeah, we're not even gonna talk about Bella Vista today. Right.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

I mean the new construction that's happening in Bella Vista is just awesome. Um, all the stuff that's happening up there. Um, and we'll get into that next. But um a lot of the stuff that's happening in Bentonville is higher-end luxury, some infill stuff. It's a little bit step above what you might pick up in some other towns, um, but every you're also paying for it. Yeah, you're paying for what the uh what you're getting. Yeah. Um there's also some great resale stuff from in and more affordable price points. So like you got like Brookberry Woods and Wildwood that are you know from the 350 to 450 range. There's just not a whole lot in those 350 to 450 price range, and then you still got a lot of middle price points, uh like Woods Creek, Copper Creek, all that stuff that's 450 to 750. And then when you're getting downtown, the closer you are to that center of downtown, the higher you're paying prices, really.

Why People Move To Bentonville

SPEAKER_00 7:39

Man, that's a good point. And I kind of want to talk about like why people move here. I think even people from here maybe may not even realize why it's so special. You know, the uh the reason a lot of people move here is kind of what we call the vendor ghetto, you know, the job stability of you know, the the just the density of Fort Fortune 500 companies uh creates really a big safety net. If you if you get let go or can't work at one place, you've got another one just right down the road. Uh not to mention your you know, we've kind of talked about this, but the the outdoor integration of just being able to do everything you want to outside within five or ten minutes. Yep. And then uh, you know, really compared to like say an Austin or a Denver, operating costs here are still pretty cheap. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

You know, we're getting closer. You know, like it's as we're gl growing the the cost of living slowly growing and and getting closer to it, but we're still relatively cheap compared to when you're looking at the big market, big boy, big boys.

SPEAKER_00 8:35

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Well, as all this stuff's coming together, I don't see anything slowing down with with what's happening with uh Walmart home office and just all the different you know things that are drawing people in, the expansion of the medical school, the expansion of Crystal Bridges. I think that there's just gonna be a continued driving force of what's happening in Bentonville over the next 10 to 15, 20 years.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

Man, I agree. And I even think those things, whether people realize it or not, affect the other cities around them. So you say, well, it's just Bentonville. No, it's not. You know, it's gonna it continues to keep that vibe and the influence and the you know the residential investments and cost, so to speak, uh stable. Yeah, it's continuing to push. It is continuing, yeah, for sure. So it's a little bit of a uh what's the last five years look like? That's a good indicator what the next is. Oh yeah. And we've got the pulse on new construction and all kinds of new stuff happening, not just in real estate, but those all kind of play into each other. Absolutely. There's no reason for that.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

I think somebody told me a few years ago that Bentonville had the second most cranes in the United States behind Nashville. Are you serious? Yeah, I don't know if that was true, but I like the story. I'm gonna continue to tell it, you know. Like it was it was. But it was something crazy like that because at the time the med school was going on, the addition of Crystal Bridges, you had the ledger building, you have all that stuff that's going on downtown, and there was just cranes everywhere. I'm like, where do we live? Yeah. I mean, this wasn't how it's been, you know. And there's just all kinds of new stuff that's gonna continue to pop up, and it's gonna be fun to see over the next five years what happens in all of Northwest Arkansas, but Bentonville specifically, just with the Walmart effect of what they have going on and how much they influence the town.

SPEAKER_00 10:20

I mean, if you look around Northwest Arkansas, I'd say we were probably about 20 years ago, I bet we were the shovel capital of the world, you know, digging more dirt than anybody at that time.

What The Next Decade Looks Like

Like Follow Share And Close

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Just how much it's moved. Yeah, that's crazy. Well, this is another fun episode, Russell, on uh NWA and Beyond. Please like, follow, and share wherever you listen to podcasts and tell your friends all about us.