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February 2017
The start of the year ushered in a wave of good news about a hot stock market,
higher wages and an active home sales environment. At the same time, housing
prices have continued to rise, and the low inventory situation and affordability
crunch has been particularly hard on first-time buyers struggling to get into the
market. Nevertheless, buyer activity is easily outpacing seller activity in much of
the country, culminating in relatively quick sales and low supply. Demand
definitely remained strong this month.
New Listings in the Milwaukee region decreased 3.7 percent to 1,783. Pending
Sales were down 50.5 percent to 648. Inventory levels fell 12.1 percent to 4,820
units.
Prices continued to gain traction. The Median Sales Price increased 4.3 percent
to $182,000. Days on Market was down 19.6 percent to 78 days. Sellers were
encouraged as Months Supply of Inventory was down 13.9 percent to 3.1
months.
Unemployment has reached pre-recession levels, and Americans remain
optimistic about finding quality employment. This matters because job growth
and higher paychecks fuel home purchases. Unfortunately, that won't matter for
potential buyers if price appreciation outpaces income growth and if mortgage
rates continue their upward trend. Sellers are getting a generous number of
offers in this market. The worry for sellers then becomes that there will not be a
generous number of homes to choose from when they become buyers.
All data for the market reports comes from the Multiple Listing Service, Inc. and is powered by 10K Research and Marketing. You can follow this link:
Metro MLS Market Updates
or visit
www.metromls.com
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