ROGERS, Ark. — Kristi Stokes and her husband purchased her first Northwest Arkansas home back in 2021 then sold it the following year.
"We are big supporters of the Razorbacks. And we love it. There are outdoor activities and my husband's a big mountain biker. It just gives us a really close getaway," Kristi Stokes said.
Now that their youngest child is heading to the University of Arkansas in the fall, they’re looking to leave Dallas and settle down in the downtown Fayetteville area for good.
But, Stokes says the process has proved to be quite challenging this time around.
"The prices have gone up at least 20 to 25% just since 2021," she said. "We sold in January of 2023 and we're still looking, so it's been about a year and a half."
The Skyline Report says the number of homes for sale on the market has increased by roughly 260%, and roughly 40% of those houses were newly constructed.
At the same time, current homeowners are not selling.
"In the past decade or more, what you see is people within the market wanting to move from one house to another house. But, today, they're not wanting to do that because the mortgage that they would have to pay on a new house is significantly higher," Mervin Jebaraj, director of the Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, said.
However, Jebaraj says this is not an inherently bad thing.
"Our region is lucky that we have this economic growth, we want to be able to share that economic growth with the people that are moving here. The only way we can do that is by building more housing," he said.
Jebaraj said it is up to Northwest Arkansas mayors and city council members to address zoning policies and development over the next 10 years to see some positive change in the housing crisis.
Watch 5NEWS on YouTube.
Download the 5NEWS app on your smartphone:
Stream 5NEWS 24/7 on the 5+ app: How to watch the 5+ app on your streaming device
To report a typo or grammatical error, please email KFSMDigitalTeam@tegna.com and detail which story you're referring to.