Bentonville is planning on cutting housing prices by half, which is a huge change. Let’s take a look into the effects this program will have on Northwest Arkansas.
Bentonville’s plans to cut home prices in half will not affect single-family homes, but it will create more housing opportunities for all the new people moving to Northwest Arkansas as well as the large companies moving here.
Keep reading to better understand how Bentonville’s plans to cut housing prices in half will affect the community.
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Project Arrow
This article is part three of my trilogy about Bentonville’s new housing project, which they call Project Arrow. If you’d like to read about the project yourself, you can read about it here or check out one of my other articles about it. Essentially, Bentonville is implementing a plan to ensure housing stays affordable in the future.
In the first two parts, we discussed why Bentonville took on this project and how they’re going to implement it, and now we are going to talk about the effects. What is Project Arrow going to affect? How is this going to affect Northwest Arkansas and Bentonville specifically? Let’s get to it!
The Effects of Bentonville Cutting Home Prices
The first question you may have is if this plan affects single-family homes, and the short answer is that it will not. Project Arrow will not affect single-family homes at all because it doesn’t really involve them. Builders like Rausch Coleman, D.R. Horton, and other big developers will continue to do what they’re doing, and this project will not really affect that at all.
Obviously, inflation is here, and interest rates are a little higher (though they have gone down quite a bit), so that affects the value of homes because buying power is a factor. But besides those things, single-family home values are not going anywhere.
The next question on people’s minds will be: If there’s more housing available at a more affordable rate, will that affect the actual competition for single-family homes?
Another way to look at this question is that if this problem wasn’t solved, and no middle housing was actually accomplished, what would really happen in the next five to ten years is that the area would stagnate. We wouldn’t be able to get anyone to move here because housing is unaffordable. To read more about why the NWA Council plans to make housing affordable, check out part 1 of this series about Bentonville’s home price cuts.
In this case, unaffordable housing might even potentially make people want to leave, which drives prices down because there are more homes available in the area because there aren’t really any jobs or people sticking around long enough.
With Project Arrow, Bentonville is trying to get ahead of the curve and establish itself as a city that wants to employ as many professionals as possible. So, it needs to have middle housing available to people.
So, my way of answering that initial question about competition for middle-family homes is to look at it another way. We should be more worried about what may happen if they don’t do this. If these housing issues are not addressed, that would be a problem because we’d probably have an overabundance of housing, which would then drive prices down because there’s too much housing and not enough people and opportunities.
This is just the natural progress of how areas grow. The difference with Northwest Arkansas compared to other areas is that it will never become Austin. They don’t want to be the next Austin. They only want to become Bentonville; they want to become Northwest Arkansas. There aren’t going to be massive skyscrapers everywhere—that’s just not going to be a thing, ever.
So, the interesting part of this project is that they’re trying to get ahead of the curve and solve these potential housing problems now instead of in the future. It would be more concerning if they waited until this was more of a problem before they addressed the concerns.
Why Is Bentonville Growing?
I talk about many of the great things happening in Northwest Arkansas, such as the trail systems and all the businesses moving here. But really, what’s happening is that some of the Big Three companies: Walmart, J.B. Hunt, and Tyson, are developing bigger headquarters in the area.
Tyson has closed down their Chicago and South Dakota plants, and they’re moving all their employees down here. J.B. Hunt is expanding their facilities in Northwest Arkansas over in the Lowell and Springdale area.
Walmart is finishing up its major, brand-new campus, which will be a real spectacle by 2025. They’re actually already bringing people in for their first building launch this year. For more information about the Walmart HQ, check out my article on the master trails.
A lot of big things are happening here, which is super exciting. So, that’s why this housing project is happening. These major companies are hiring a lot more people and bringing more people into the area, so if the city doesn’t solve these housing issues, it’s going to be a problem in the next three to five years, and this is Bentonville’s solution to this problem.
On top of the Big Three, many other businesses are bringing more people here, so this is a forward-thinking solution before it becomes a much larger issue.
Also, I have a 3-day itinerary that can help you decide what activities to do if you’re overwhelmed by everything Northwest Arkansas has to offer.
It doesn’t matter if you’re a foodie, a sports person, a sightseer, or want to spend quality time with your kids; I have something for you. Check out the link below to learn more:
https://www.allthingsnwa.com/3-day-itinerary-northwest-arkansas
What Are They Building in Bentonville?
So, if Bentonville isn’t going to be building single-family homes or skyscrapers, what are they building? There’s this unique potential opportunity that Northwest Arkansas is taking advantage of. You can see this in the South Yards of Fayetteville, which is a new complex with community centers and fun events, and it’s centered around the trail systems.
That’s going to be the idea of what Bentonville wants to do. Basically, they’re developing new styles of housing that they haven’t been able to do before because now, Northwest Arkansas has time and funding on its side.
Bentonville recognizes that housing has changed and people’s needs have changed, and Arkansas has the potential to be a world leader in terms of outdoor activities, such as mountain biking, so they’re figuring out how to make new housing that allows people to be part of a large community.
The outdoor community is growing, and larger companies have also taken an interest in NWA. The Adventure Racing World Series has relocated its headquarters in Northwest Arkansas from Queensland, Australia. To learn more, check out my article detailing why the organization moved and how this move benefits the local community.
Final Thoughts
Bentonville knows that it will grow in the next few years because of the larger companies moving to Northwest Arkansas and the outdoor activity potential in the area, so they are getting ahead of potential housing problems by implementing a plan to cut housing in half. This plan will not affect single-family homes.