Milwaukee metro home sales rise 3.7% in June

Realtors say market is tightest in decades

The metro Milwaukee housing market stayed on its steady upward course in June, with sales growing 3.7% from the same month a year ago and the average sale price for the fourcounty area finally topping the pre-recession peak from 2006.

Even though the inventory of homes for sale remains tight, a surge in June sales in Washington County — to 286 from 231 in 2016 — helped keep alive a solid trend of year-over-year monthly sales growth for existing homes, a report Wednesday by the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors shows.

“That continues a strong streak of positive sales the market has seen since early 2015,” Mike Ruzicka, president of the local Realtors group, said in the monthly report. “Of the last 30 months, only five did not see an increase in sales.”

From January through June, there were 10,220 total sales in the metro area, compared with 9,961 in 2016, a 2.6% increase.

Ruzicka noted that during the first six months of the year, the average sale price in Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties combined reached $259,776, topping the average peak of $259,473 in pre-recession 2006.

Although the price recovery varies from community to community — Waukesha County is 3% ahead of its peak price while Milwaukee County still lags by 8.8% — the overall comeback bodes well for the market, Ruzicka said.

“This marks a significant psychological hurdle for the market, and, hopefully, will help sellers feel more comfortable about the market’s future and their housing options,” he said.

Realtors say they could sell many more houses if more were on the market. According to Ruzicka’s report, brokers and agents who have been in real estate since the 1980s said they cannot recall a time when inventory was this tight.

A short supply of houses and

condos, paired with high buyer demand, is causing some home shoppers to become frustrated, particularly among those searching for homes costing less than $350,000, the Realtors organization said.

“We still have tight inventory, we still have strong demand, interest rates remain extremely attractive,” said Pete Stefaniak of The Stefaniak Group, a Milwaukee real estate company. “It’s been a very good real estate market, a very healthy real estate market.”

He said, “There are certain markets that could use more inventory — there’s no question.” Among them, he said, are his key markets of Muskego, New Berlin and Wauwatosa.

The Realtors report shows homes in New Berlin were on the market for an average of only 33 days — the fewest among communities with high sales volume over the first half of the year.