(The Center Square) – It remains a seller’s market in Wisconsin, but both home prices and home sales dipped in September.
The Wisconsin Realtors Association’s monthly sales report shows the median home price in Wisconsin fell to $310,000 last month. While that is $17,500 more than September 2023, it’s $14,000 less than the medicine price in August.
“This is still a very challenging market for first-time buyers who are traditionally looking for starter homes at lower price points. There’s a lot of unmet millennial demand, which unfortunately will keep pressure on prices and further shrink the inventory of starter homes,” Realtors President & CEO Tom Larson said.
The number of homes sold also dipped from August, falling to 5,817 in September from 6,721 in August.
The sales report says there were 20,862 homes listed in Wisconsin last month. That’s about 300 more homes than were on the market in August.
There is, however, some good news from the report.
“Mortgage rates are more than a percent lower compared to this time last year, and this is the fourth straight month they’ve fallen since averaging a little over 7% last May,” Mary Jo Bowe said. “This has really helped improve affordability in the state.”
Association Economist Dave Clark said interest rates will play a huge role in home sales going forward.
“The Fed’s actions in September to lower short-term interest rates by a half percent sent a clear signal that it was concerned that recession was a greater risk than inflation. While core inflation did uptick slightly in September, the Conference Board’s Leading Economic Indicator, which tends to trend downward as the economy weakens, fell again in September, which is the sixth consecutive monthly decline,” Clark said. “The Fed meets two more times this year to decide whether additional cuts are warranted. If inflation pressures don’t further strengthen, we can expect additional interest rate cuts this year.”
In all, the report says sales are up 3.8% compared to the first nine months of 2023. But the report also makes the point that most of the homes for sale are $350,000 and above.
“There were very few listings below $200,000 in September. Specifically, only 18.2% of total listings were below that price point. In contrast, 31.4% of listings were in the $200,000 to $349,999 range, and the remaining 50.4% of listings exceeded $350,000,” the report notes.
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