The number a buyer sees on a portal is not the number that clears in The Heights. In March 2026, the median sale price closed at $723,000, while the same neighborhood's median listing price on Realtor.com sat at $607,500 and Zillow's neighborhood view at $684,412. That is a real gap, not a rounding error, and it changes how a serious buyer should read every listing on Kavanaugh Boulevard.
The gap has one main cause and a few secondary ones. If you are comparing neighborhoods and you have already priced yourself into or out of The Heights based on what you saw online, the rest of this post is for you.
The gap between browsing and buying
Here is what three well-known data sources reported at roughly the same moment in 2026 for the same neighborhood inside 72207:
| Source | Metric | Value | Window |
|---|---|---|---|
| Redfin | Median sale price | $723,000 | March 2026 |
| Realtor.com | Median listing price | $607,500 | Spring 2026 |
| Zillow (neighborhood view) | Typical home value | $684,412 | Spring 2026 |
| Redfin | Median $/sqft | $336 | March 2026 |
| Redfin | Days on market | 103 | March 2026 |
| Redfin | Homes sold that month | 10 | March 2026 |
Three numbers that look like they should agree, don't. The listing median describes what sellers are asking on properties that have not sold yet, and in a slow-turn market that inventory skews toward the harder-to-move homes. The sale median describes what actually closed. When the closed number sits 15 to 20 percent above the listed number, the takeaway is not that everyone is overpaying. The takeaway is that the homes clearing in The Heights right now are the well-prepared, well-located ones, and they are trading closer to $336 a square foot than to the friendlier list-price math a buyer might do at the kitchen table.
Why ten sales can swing a headline
Redfin recorded ten Heights sales in March 2026, down from twelve the year before. On that base, one $1.6 million estate closing on Cantrell moves the median more than a national report ever could. The year-over-year jump of 23.5 percent is a real jump, but it is a jump measured across two very thin months.
The practical implication for a buyer is patience, not panic. Days on market held steady at 103, which is the more honest signal in this dataset. Homes in The Heights are not flying off the shelves in a week. They sit, they get shown, they trade at prices that reflect condition and street more than any citywide trend. Compare that to Little Rock as a whole, where Redfin reported a February 2026 median of $247,000 and a 76-day marketing time. The Heights is a slower, higher-stakes lane inside the same city.
The obvious story is that The Heights is expensive. The useful story is that it is expensive, slow, and thinly traded, which means the median tells you less than the block does.
What each budget actually gets on the ground
Given the sale-price math, here is a working translation from budget to inventory that a Heights buyer can carry into a showing.
Around $500,000. Cottages and bungalows on smaller lots, often the original 1930s to 1940s footprint, sometimes updated in the kitchen and bath and sometimes not. Expect two to three bedrooms, plaster and hardwood, and the tradeoffs that come with pre-war construction: knob-and-tube remediation history, older HVAC, and detached garages accessed from the alley. Walk-to-Kavanaugh convenience is realistic at this tier.
$650,000 to $800,000. This is the true middle of the market once you calibrate to sale prices rather than list prices. Renovated bungalows with modern kitchens, three bedrooms, and a functional primary suite live here, as do smaller Tudor and Colonial Revival homes off Kavanaugh. Central High School, Pulaski Heights Middle, and Forest Park Elementary are the typical school assignments. Lots hover around a quarter acre.
$900,000 and up. Larger Tudors, Georgian Revivals, and newer custom builds, often on East Palisades or the streets sloping toward Cantrell Road. Views of the Arkansas River from the bluffs start to be a realistic feature at this tier. Recent MLS activity has included homes with fully renovated 1930s bones asking north of a million, and one 11,799-square-foot estate on Cantrell listed at $1,650,000.
The $336-per-square-foot Redfin figure is the discipline. When a listing pencils out well below that, the question is why. When it pencils out well above, the question is what the seller thinks the buyer is paying for that is not square footage.
The Cammack Village workaround
Cammack Village sits inside the same 72207 zip as The Heights, borders the Country Club of Little Rock, and is legally its own city with its own police force. For a buyer who wants Heights adjacency without the Heights sale-price math, this is where the arithmetic changes.
Active Cammack Village listings in 2026 have ranged from a $195,000 two-bedroom on Pine Valley Road to a $899,900 new construction on Rockwood Road by HBH Builders, with plenty of stock in between. The housing itself is older on average, mostly built between 1940 and 1969 per NeighborhoodScout, which is not unlike Heights bungalow stock. A buyer priced out of the Country Club core can often find a same-zip, same-corridor address for meaningfully less, with the tradeoff being fewer walk-to-Kavanaugh blocks and a different municipal footprint.
For investors, the rent-to-price relationship makes this a hold market, not a yield market. Realtor.com's April 2026 snapshot for 72207 showed a median rent of $1,647 against Heights sale prices in the mid-six-figures. Rental inventory in the zip was down 36.84 percent year over year, which supports rents, but it does not close the gap between what a Heights property costs and what it earns monthly. Buyers underwriting for appreciation and low tenant turnover have a case here. Buyers underwriting for cash flow should be reading a different neighborhood.
The corridor is still investing in itself
One reason the sale-price line keeps holding above the listing line is that the Kavanaugh commercial spine keeps attracting operators. Barnaby Group, the hospitality company behind George's Little Rock, announced in 2025 that its next Heights project, The Lady, will occupy a two-story Tudor at the corner of Kavanaugh Boulevard and North Fillmore Street with a planned opening in early 2027. Heights Corner Market at 5018 Kavanaugh continues to operate as a specialty grocery and restaurant in the former Terry's Finer Foods building. Heights Taco & Tamale at 5805 Kavanaugh, Mugs Cafe, Wordsworth Books at 5920 R Street, The Toggery, and Le Pops give the corridor a genuinely walkable retail depth that a buyer paying $336 a foot is partially paying for.
Colliers Arkansas listed a 1,800-square-foot retail space at 5815 Kavanaugh at $23.00 per square foot NNN in July 2026, with roughly 7,000 vehicles per day on Kavanaugh and 25,000 per day on Cantrell. Those numbers matter to a residential buyer because retail rents and traffic counts are the honest tell on whether a neighborhood's commercial fabric is thickening or thinning. In The Heights right now, it is thickening.
The annual calendar reinforces it. Handmade in the Heights in April, Chili Fights in the Heights, Cinco de Heights, Holidays in the Heights, and the Westover Hills Farmers Market from May through September all run out of the Heights Business Association's programming along Kavanaugh. None of that shows up in a Redfin median, but all of it shows up in what a buyer is actually purchasing.
FAQ
If the Heights median sale is $723,000, why do I keep seeing listings under $500,000? The listing pool skews toward smaller and pre-war properties that need work, and toward homes that have been on market longer than average. The sale median is weighted by what actually closed in a given month, and in a ten-sale month a single large trade can lift the number. Look at price per square foot and days on market together for a steadier read.
Is The Heights a good investment property market? It is a strong long-term-hold, low-turnover market and a weak monthly cash-flow market. Median rent in the zip clustered between $1,325 and $1,647 across sources in 2026, well below what a $700,000 purchase needs to cash-flow conventionally. Investors here are buying scarcity and location.
Where do Heights buyers who need more house per dollar usually end up? Cammack Village, adjacent pockets of Hillcrest, and the Foxcroft and River Ridge neighborhoods off Cantrell Road come up most often. Same corridor access, different price and lot dynamics.
If you are trying to figure out what your budget actually reaches inside 72207, or whether a Heights list price is telling you the truth about a specific home, that is the conversation to have before you write an offer. Will Smith Realty works these blocks street by street. Let's find your next home, or see what your property is worth.
