Area home market slowing
A 5% reduction in sales of Milwaukee metro area homes in the first six months of 2019 could signal a mild slowdown in what has been a hot market for several years.
Through June this year, there were 9,738 sales of existing homes in Milwaukee, Ozaukee, Washington and Waukesha counties, a report Friday by the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors shows. That compared with 10,247 sales in the first six months of 2018.
Average prices rose during that span as well, making a house less affordable for some potential buyers.
With the Federal Reserve considering an interest rate cut and declines in business and consumer confidence, there are are reasons to expect a tapering off of home sales, according to Mike Ruzicka, president of the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors.
“Sales of homes in the four-county area through the second quarter also appear to show that the market may have peaked,” Ruzicka said in his monthly home sales report.
“Nonetheless, while there are several indications that the market is slowing, there is nothing on the horizon that would indicate the slowdown is significant. This is not 2008.”
Since 2015, most of the growth in home sales in metro Milwaukee has been in houses or condos costing less than $300,000. But activity in that price range has slowed along with sales of houses at the upper end of the price spectrum, Ruzicka said in the report. The slower pace of sales has occurred even though listings of homes for sale increased between May and June.
Prices, however, continued to rise during the first half of 2019 compared with 2018. The average sale price rose in all four counties: Milwaukee, to $196,166 from $184,902, or 6.1%; Ozaukee, $360,820 from $354,452, or 1.8%; Washington, to $267,898 from $261,931, or 2.3%; and Waukesha, to $351,508 from $327,182, or 7.4%
Among metro communities with the most sales during the January-throughJune period, the city of Milwaukee had a 6% jump in average home price, to $153,065 from $144,407, while the city of Waukesha saw the average price go up 8.6%, to $253,986 from $233,893.
Other price increases in municipalities with large numbers of sales: West Allis, to $156,381 from $146,166, up 7%; Wauwatosa, to $282,887 from $259,799, or 8.9%; Brookfield, to $374,411 from $358,843, or 4.3%; and Menomonee Falls, to $346,866 from $324,307, or 7%.