🏡 Washington County Housing: A Steady Market with Firm Pricing

🔑 2025 Key Highlights: (Residential | $175K–$2.0M)

• 📉 Home Sales: -0.3% YoY (3,811 vs 3,824)

• 💰 Median Home Price: +4.5% YoY ($350,000 vs $335,000)

  • 🏠 Existing Homes: +4.8% YoY in volume (2,329 vs 2,222); +4.0% median price ($348,500 vs $335,000)

  • 🏗️ New Homes: -7.5% YoY in volume (1,482 vs 1,602);

    +5.5% median price ($352,460 vs $333,975)

🧠 Allegiance Market Analysis

Washington County sales activity is basically unchanged year-over-year. This follows the same trend we saw in Benton County. Even though sales are flat prices continue to climb at a healthy pace (+4–5%).

There is a story inside the numbers though:

• Existing home volume rose ~5%, suggesting resale inventory is absorbing demand.

• New home volume fell ~7.5%, but new home pricing accelerated (+5.5%), which indicates builders still have pricing power even with softer unit volume.

The 2025 Story: Transaction activity held steady while prices kept rising. Demand didn’t disappear, but it shifted. The mix of where buyers are finding homes is just rotating between existing and new homes. Much like Benton County, supply constraints due to infrastructure are likely impacting new home sales.

🔮2026 Washington County Predictions

📈 Units sold: +1.0%
💰 Median price: +3.5%

Washington County should continue to benefit from two structural tailwinds: relative affordability (vs. Benton County) and a more balanced supply pipeline.

We expect units sold growth to be modest, driven primarily by resale absorption and continued inbound migration to NWA. Median price growth should slow slightly versus 2025, but remain positive as the region continues to add jobs and maintain strong household formation.

Inventory growth in 2026 will skew toward more attainable price points, keeping the market liquid and limiting extreme price acceleration.

📝 Market Stories This Week

• 🏛️ Fed Drama - The Fed drama moved to the Supreme Court this week. In 2025, President Trump moved to remove Lisa Cook as a Federal Reserve governor based on allegations that she committed mortgage fraud. Based on early arguments, it appears the Supreme Court will reject Trump’s move and that Lisa Cook will retain her position. This has major implications around Fed independence. An attack on Fed independence would show up as increased bond yields and ultimately higher mortgage rates.

• 💹 Bond Yields - Keep an eye on this story as it could become bigger if not contained. Japan’s bond yields spiked on their proposal of a tax cut despite having budget deficits and an enormous debt load. Japan is the world’s biggest creditor nation. If JGB yields spike, it could spill over into the US bond market leading to higher bond yields and higher mortgage rates.

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