Want to buy a house in Wisconsin? If it’s in Waukesha, Ozaukee, or Dane counties, think twice. The median home prices in these counties are jaw-droppingly high. We’re talking higher than any Snoop Dogg joke you can come up with.
Here’s Five Fast Facts Home Prices in Wisconsin:
- 🏘️ Insane - In June, the median price for Waukesha County was $464,000. In Ozaukee, it was $450,000 and in Dane, it was $420,000. That’s insane. Like, “I’m wearing pants made out of mashed potatoes” insane.
- 🏠 Insaner - Even crazier: the median home price in Waukesha County rose more than 41% between 2016 and 2021. But the median household income there only rose by 15%. How can anyone afford to live there?
- 🏡 Insanest - The answer is worse than you’d think: 43.4% of all renters in Waukesha county were spending more than 30% of their income on rent.
- 🏚️ Insanest times 1000 - Waukesha County as a whole isn’t helping, either. Zoning regulations limit the types of housing that can be built and some municipalities restrict smaller homes on smaller lots. You have to build big in those three counties.
- 🏗️ Build, Build, Build - This news comes on the heels of a report that said Wisconsin needs an additional 140,000 housing units by 2029 if it wasn’t to keep pace with demand, and by 227,000 units if it wants to grow its working age population. Considering the working-age population has decided to GTFO, that’s a bad sign for the future of the state.
🔥Bottom line: Look, we’ve been reporting about how tough the housing market has become over the past two years. This kind of data, though, suggests it’s even worse than we’d thought here in Wisconsin. These are prices that would make even the ultra-wealthy flinch. The only way this is going to change is to have the various lawmakers adjust some rules or we’re going to be an empty state quicker than you’d think.
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