From the Arkansas Times, we have Warwick Sabin writing about Suddenly, the NW Ark. real estate market isn't so hot.
Northwest Arkansas has grown faster than anyone could have anticipated. Sleepy pastureland overnight became subdivisions, office parks and strip malls. Traffic backs up amid road construction and snarls at rush hour on a freeway not yet 10 years old. Internet map sites like Mapquest can’t update Benton County quick enough to keep up with all of the new local streets.
The lure of easy money proved irresistible to would-be developers.
The dizzying pace of expansion was as evident in the pages of new society magazines as in the economic statistics. Ambitious developers joined with start-up bank executives to unveil high-profile projects at glitzy functions.
Now, the hangover from the big party has set in. Despite a steady population increase of about 1,100 people a month, there’s a serious oversupply of residential and commercial property. One economist estimates 112.9 months of housing inventory — more than nine years’ worth — at the current rates of absorption.
Nine years of inventory?!? In Benton County, home of Walmart?!?
Sweet suffering surfeit!
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