Pulaski County Market Report

September brought Pulaski County back to a more even keel after the summer PCS rush. With the heaviest wave of military relocations behind us, the market is settling into balance — 3.49 months of inventory puts buyers and sellers on roughly equal footing for the first time in a while. Active listings dipped slightly to 192, but that's less about supply drying up and more about the normal seasonal cooldown after months of peak turnover. The 55 homes sold and 84 still under contract show there's still plenty of activity moving through the pipeline, just at a calmer pace than the May-through-August stretch.

The numbers worth paying attention to are the median sold price and the list-to-sale ratio. A 5.6% pull-back in median sold price to $255,000, paired with a nearly two-point drop in list-to-sale ratio to 97.9%, tells us sellers are giving up a bit more ground in negotiations than they were a month ago. Days on market climbed to 48.4, another sign that the urgency driving summer bidding wars has eased. None of this points to a weakening market — it's a return to normal after an unusually hot season. For sellers, it means pricing realistically from day one matters more now than it did in July. For buyers, especially those using VA financing, this is a window with a little more breathing room to negotiate than you've seen all year.

Conditions still vary block by block. Waynesville remains a seller's market with 69 active listings and a median list price of $289,000, continuing to command the premium as the county's hub. St. Robert is the most balanced of the bunch and is moving fastest, with homes under contract in under 36 days on average — a good sign for anyone targeting that $200K–$350K sweet spot where military buyer competition is sharpest. Dixon has tipped into buyer's market territory, offering more room to negotiate for those willing to look slightly outside the main corridor. Crocker is smaller and slower-moving, with sellers market, but at nearly 75 days on market, patience is still the name of the game there. Bottom line for September: this is a market that rewards sellers who price to the moment and buyers who move decisively when the right home in the right price band hits the list.

September landed with 36 active parcels on the ground in Pulaski County, up six from last month, and that extra inventory combined with just one closing pushed months of supply to 36 — triple what we saw in August. That's a buyer's market by any measure, and sellers need to understand what that means heading into archery season and firearms deer season: buyers have room to be patient and plenty of options to compare. Average days on market crept up to 168, and with only five parcels pending, the pace out there is slow. But don't read too much into that single sold number — one closing at $791,500 swung the median sold price wildly against a thin sample, and the more reliable read is the $5,537 per acre median on sold ground versus $7,085 per acre on what's currently listed. That gap tells you asking prices still have some air in them, and buyers who've done their homework are negotiating accordingly — list-to-sale ratio sits at 97.1%, so serious offers are landing close to ask, just not at the inflated end.

The character of what's for sale right now plays right into this county's strength: 66% of listings mention hunting habitat, another 66% describe timber or wooded ground, and 63% have a creek, pond, or river on the property. That's prime recreational and homestead country, and with over half the listings including a cabin or retreat structure, this inventory is built for the buyer who wants to get out of the truck and already have shelter waiting. What's thin is pasture and hay ground — only 9% of listings mention tillable or hay acreage — so if you're running cattle or need cuttable hay fields, your choices are narrow and you'll want to act when something fits. The Fort Leonard Wood and Waynesville corridor continues to bring in active-duty and veteran buyers looking for that post-service acreage with room to build, which is why 43% of listings carry a barn, shop, or outbuilding already in place — that infrastructure matters to a buyer planning to put down permanent roots.

Looking at the areas, Dixon remains the volume leader with 13 active parcels and a median ask of $100,000 on just under 23 acres — the entry point for this market. Waynesville and St. Robert sit in the middle with smaller but pricier offerings, while Richland's five parcels, heavy on farm-type ground with an 83-acre median, carry a median ask of $1.75 million — that's where the serious acreage and real agricultural investment is concentrated. Crocker's three listings average just under 60 acres at $380,000 median, a reasonable middle path. For sellers, the message this month is patience and realistic pricing — with supply stacked up and deals moving slow, overpriced ground will sit. For buyers, especially those wanting water, timber, and hunting ground all in one package, this is a month to look hard and negotiate with confidence.