(The Center Square) – Home prices in Wisconsin continue to go up, but economists say they are not going as quickly as in the recent past.
The report released Thursday from the Wisconsin Realtors Association says the median price for a house in Wisconsin is now $315,000, up from $300,000 last month.
“This is a result of strong unmet demand in an environment of improving but still limited supply,” David Clark, professor emeritus of economics and consultant to the association told The Center Square. “The tight supply and strong demand are driving up our prices, but since our listings have improved, we are selling more homes than in May of 2023.”
His reference is to new and total listings.
Home sales for May jumped 11% compared to the year before.
Clark said Wisconsin continues to have more people who want to buy a home than there are houses for sale. And that, he said, is why prices continue to go up.
Home prices are much higher priced in the Madison and Milwaukee areas.
The report shows the median price in south central Wisconsin, which includes Madison, is just over $369,000. While the median price in southeast Wisconsin, which includes Milwaukee, is $330,000.
“Inventories are tight throughout the state, but they are tightest in our metropolitan areas,” Clark said. “We expect more price pressure in areas that have less available supply, and less pressure in areas with more available supply.”
Clark said people shouldn’t focus only on the price of homes. He said it’s important to note that prices have been going up slower than in the recent past.
“The issue is not how high they will go, but rather how quickly will they rise over a given period of time,” Clark said. “We have seen a moderation in the annual appreciation of prices in 2023 compared to the three years earlier. Specifically, the statewide annual median price rose 10.8% from 2019 to 2020, 9.5% from 2020 to 2021, 9.9% from 2021 to 2022, 7.5% from 2022 to 2023. For 2024 after five months, prices are up 7.3% year to date. When we get to the end of 2024, we suspect that the growth rate in prices will look very similar to the growth rate in 2023.”
