How does a razorback striker do with a degree in financial management and a successful career in medical sales for an international firm makes a career go to the Northwest Arkansas home builder at the age of 50? Easy. It was destined to happen all the time.
Matt Wait, owner of Matt Wait based in Fayetteville Homes Custom Homes, has been building a house since he was a child. He is a third -generation builder who took a light way out for several decades.
“My father and grandfather were builders,” Wait said. When my father was building a house, the builders would do everything: plumbing, electrician, heating and air, roof, framing, foundation, sheets, carpentry and decoration. I mean, they do everything. This was the builder at the time, so I had an expert behind the scenes just showing me the goal and seizing it. “
Wait rose in the Hot Springs area and was a four -year letter with Arkansas Razorbacks as a striker from 1993 to 1997. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in financial management and went to work for international letters, astrazene and Abbott account treatment, specialized in sale, and as a manager of territory.
He admits that as a boy when he would work with his father, the home -building business was everything but fascinating. Wait said his title was “bored” and he spent a lot of time cleaning the construction mess and doing work that no one would want to do.
He built a house in 1998 using a local builder, but he really did not like the process. He decided then that every future home he would build, he would do it himself. So far, he has built six custom houses and has decided to grow full time and leave Corporate America for now.
Wait’s main niche will be custom house mainly in the 1.5 million to $ 3 million range, whether it is a home in a closed community, a new subdivision, or a crash and reconstruction. He is not planning to compete with national builders who are developing neighborhoods or communities to a larger scale; His work will be more selective and intended to meet the needs of homeowners who want rich finishes. He can even make some specific homes with high level touch.
“The custom market is definitely a good place to be,” he said. “I feel like you’re going to pay a premium for it, in my opinion, there are some things you have to expect.”
Increasing costs
The construction industry in the country and nationwide is about increasing costs for most of this decade. Covid-19 pandemic supply chains all over the world, and the skills are still feeling.
Construction materials, including lumber and steel, escalated with inflation and have not been removed. President Donald Trump’s tariff trade strategy risks exacerbating costs for construction supplies and products.
A narrow labor market can cause huge delays in projects, especially with subcontractors who have more work than they can handle. Changes of Federal Immigration Policy, which should not yet be communicated or executed fully, can also be a factor that affects the construction work that has a significant component of migrant, seasonal and transient aid.
Add to the mixture that nearly 1,000 people a month are moving to northwestern Arkansas, where the inventory of affordable housing is tense – and expensive -. The entire model of supply and demand is greatly bent on the demand side. Wait said the price per square foot for many residential areas in northwestern Arkansas is going far higher than just a few years ago.
“Everyone’s price point is different,” he said. “I can make a less expensive home, or I can make an expensive home. Think the same scenario for me. I treat them alike. Whether it’s a lower price point or a higher price, it doesn’t matter. It is all about the same process for me. But, as an example, $ 200 with square foot, it’s just a normal house now, this is less than one hundred. Impossible to get there too. ”
Some custom houses can reach $ 500 per square foot, Wait said, but the region needs home at all price points, especially affordable housing for home buyers for the first time.
Trends and data
Although interest rates have doubled by lower decades, Arkansas home sales in the northwest are still strong.
About 400 homeowners move to Northwest Arkansas every year, according to AI Sam M. Walton College of Business. Home sales in the region saw a healthy 2024 with 10,569 houses sold in Benton and Washington counties, according to the Board of Realtors Northwest Arkansas. This was an improvement from 9,812 houses sold in 2023 when interest rates were encouraged, but lower than 10.924 houses sold in 2022.
More than 12,000 houses were sold in both 2020 and 2021 when many markets saw record activity led by pandemic changes for home -bound workers, low interest rates and customer stimulus money.
In the first month of this year in Northwest Arkansas, 643 houses sold, a 21% improvement out of 531 closures in January 2024, according to the board. In the past five years, the average house prices in the region have risen from $ 196,431 to $ 355,000.
At the last lunch of the economic forecast organized by the University of Arkansas Center for Business and Economic Research, Sam Khater, chief economist in Freddie Mac, spoke about increasing the costs of housing that continue to maintain inflation with the increasing shortage of homes at a lower price.
He said builders have mainly stopped building initial homes that consumers within 80% of average income may allow them to buy. This is happening at the same time, households living in smaller homes can grow up, but the average 3% mortgage is keeping them in place. Khater said while a 7% mortgage is historically normal, households can buy less home for what they sell. The cost of ownership has increased due to relatively higher interest rates. He estimates that the average family would lose $ 47,000 in home capital if they tried to move from their 3%mortgage.
“We are so accustomed to the low, low rates, and they are not returning stopping a great deal of shock to the economy,” Khater said. “Fed is trying to avoid the mistakes he made before by lowering fast rates and keeping them too low.”
Arkansas Northwest is an exception from the national trend as the influx of new residents in the region is leading to a thriving demand for shelter. This is good news for house builders like Wait and his peers at all price points.
“This market will not slow down. It will move. It will continue to grow,” said Wait, who sees subdivisions stinging in cities inside and around Bella Vista, Cave Springs, Centerton, Elm Springs and Tontown. “And if you are inside the city and you’re somewhere fit, all those things are growing too. It will never go back.”
Wait doesn’t seem to be going back. His passion for building houses is not only rooted in his DNA through his father and grandfather; Also similar to all the other tireless work he has put in the school in football for sales for years.
“With the construction of houses, you have a feeling of reaching from the beginning to the end … It’s something vulnerable. Work is so useful,” he said.
Editor’s Note: Kim Souza contributed to this report.