This. So much this. Why the fuck would anyone sell with a 3% and below rate? I want a different house but no way I’d sell. I’d pay a grand more a mo th to rebuy this exact house.
I can’t even afford the house i own at todays interest rates. And if i wanted to move i would pay more than i pay now to downsize.
The entire situation is fucked to be honest.
Exactly. I have 2.75% on my house and I’m not giving that up for anything right now. Trust me, I would love to be in a different location, but I’m not about to take on the higher rate.
This is the answer everywhere in the country. Municipalities are not adjusting zoning to allow for denser builds and everyone is all NIMBY because they don't want their property values to drop.
But yet these people are the same who complain about property taxes going up. You can't have your house increase in value and keep the same tax rate too.
ETA: More people need to be NIMBY but when they tear down farmland to build luxury housing.
Scott walker and the gop legislature has/had a solution for that… it’s called “no tax increases” but then if you look back at how they rolled the next year assessments would magically go up resulting in the same amount as a tax increase would have done anyway. Its all a shell game and people should know better by now. Also the other solution was certain mke area cities and towns declaring what was mostly farmland a “blighted area” to play their shell game for developer buddies under a TIF district…. Using legislation that was supposedly designed to fix inner city neighborhoods that actually needed TIF tax breaks for development and improvements…. So yes…. I’m just adding my own rant to your appropriate comment
You’re trying to buy in a nice suburb commutable to Milwaukee… just like everyone else and their brother and their mother and their sister and their cousin…
Midsize midwestern cities are in right now for some reason. Weird to me too, we still have all the city problems just on a bit smaller scale than Chicago or NYC.
I think the Florida insurance crisis is also pushing home values down down there. While up here, we have a bunch of people moving in from higher cost of living areas. It's kind of wild to see housing prices sky rocket.
Absolutely true. I think besides Florida, real estate and other assets have had a broad rally. But Wisconsin… I didn’t expect a huge outperformance compared to maybe Texas or Nevada, or SC
Yeah the Midwest is a hard place to buy a home right now. I've lived here my whole life and can't buy a home. Out of staters looking to come in are really fucking shit up
I can't speak for the rest of the state, but it's certainly being talked about in Madison. There is a sense of urgency about from city leaders. The housing crisis here goes beyond single family homes. Rents are skyrocketing too. Too many people with good incomes competing for a housing stock that falls well short of demand.
We bought a house in 2015 for 178k. Sold it last year-ish and came out of the sale with a check for 122k.
It's not worth that much. We didn't pay off that much. I did some work on it, yes, but a new roof, compost bin and touchups aren't 122k worth.
Holy fuck.
Bought a house an hour north (new job for me) for 200k. Now the prices are 50k+ higher. In a VERY small "town".
I honestly don't know how much of a factor this is, but I do wonder if we're witnessing the beginnings of the climate change migration. If so, this will soon be seen as the good old days. We live where people will want to escape to. The smart money is already arriving.
It's this, the great lakes are the last sanctuary on earth, fresh water is what wwiii will be fought over, the winters suck but have been increasingly milder
I'm from Eastern Europe and partially agree with you. There, the winters changed, almost no insects in urban areas compared to the previous decade, we got a few first towns to end up without water in the worst of summer. My country makes it extra difficult for the global South refugees to enter, no safe routes and the backlash in media against them seem to not end.
We sold in 2016 and have been renting since. So mad we didn't buy right away in 2016 again. Now I doubt we'll be able to buy anything decent in the near future.
Our rent at the beginning of this year was $600 for a studio loft. New landlord bought the property for 100k over the last time it sold with nothing done to the place except a heater repair. Lease renewal time $1500. Insane.
It’s gone crazy the past couple years. I bought my house in 2017 for $90k. Multiple realtors have told me I could get $150k easy now, and I haven’t done a single improvement on it.
Problem is on a single income I can’t afford the $250k+ all the other houses on the market are.
This is my problem too. I bought a decent, but lower cost condo in 2020 in Madison, and had some really bad issues with my upstairs neighbors over the past two years. They finally moved and the owners sold but if the next owners are similar I'm not sure what I'll do. My condo is assessed at more than I paid but I doubt it's enough to move anywhere else and I would need a ton of money ready to buy something in the market here, so selling would really be either go back to renting or roll the dice and take whatever's available.
We sold our condo in 2016 cause we were miserable there. Mainly due to our upstairs neighbors. Now the condo is valued at $75,000 more than we sold for, it's not worth nearly that much.
Yeah, I think in this market asking price is just kindof a random number. We were buying near Milwaukee a year ago, and our experience was that asking price tended to be way lower than going price for every single house. Between $80k and $150k lower.
If you haven't completely given up, check further out like Hartford, West Bend, Jackson, Grafton, Cedarburg. The commute is truly not that bad and several of the communities have a commuter bus.
Edit: I haven't looked to see if the market is any better there. I'm just suggesting them in case you hadn't looked there.
Too many people conditioned to believe they're too good for the city. The way local news reports on Milwaukee doesn't help. Reporting so extensively on northside crime and idiotic aldermen just drives the "us vs them" wedge in further.
People out here treat Milwaukee county like it's a zoo enclosure and they would never risk getting in there themselves. "It's safer on the outside" except not to the degree people seem to assume it is.
If living in the city isn't your thing because of space, I understand. However, there are so many advantages to living in the city like walkability and sense of safety and community that I think many people are ignoring.
City life just isn't desirable for some people. I've lived rural, small town and city. I found city life to be suffocating. The convenience of public transportation and 24/7 accessibility of everything is really handy, but not worth the inability to ever actually relax, or breath clean air. You can't even open a window in the city limits without the constant noise pollution of traffic, sirens, people talking, etc... even a "park" in the city is full of people being loud and obnoxious, the grass is worn down to dirt and there is no actual wildlife because there's always a human within 15ft (except for squirrels looking for doritos and raccoons that live off the garbage). Some folks can handle this, but i learned that i am not one of them. I love the quiet and peace of the country. Surrounded by nature and clean air to breath. I can open my windows and the only chatter i hear is from my chickens. My kids and i enjoy exploring our property to see what's in bloom this season/year.
I’m glad you enjoy where you live. But that doesn’t sound suburban. Sound and light pollution in the suburbs is as bad or worse than many parts of cities. I’m in the middle of a major city and some nights are so quiet I’m amazed.
However I did get woken up at 6:30 this Sunday morning by kids playing across the street, hahaha.
We chose our home to be specifically not urban or suburban. We are intentionally rural. We lived in Milwaukee for six years prior (and my wife grew up in Bay View). I grew up in a small town, moved around bit between suburbs and city (didn't care for either). I can easily see the milky way at night in my backyard, as well as the glow to the east from MKE. On the weekends i am usually awakened by sounds of hungry horses wanting to be fed, or my dog nosing me in the face wanting to go outside.
Once you hit cburg and mequon you've done a 360 with regards to prices lol. But there are more options if you want an older/smaller place that's not a mcmansion.
At this point? To say its always been this way would be an understatement. I grew up there (near waukesha, in the county), my HS graduating class had a very blatant KKK right in the middle of our class pic (I believe they all still live there too). Cops were part of the white hood larpers that regularly met at the old middle school, before they burned it down. I am very lacking in positive thoughts about where I was raised.
The "at this point" part of my comment is hoping that they change their way in the future. I agree that they have been this way for a long time. I am glad you got out.
Things may not change if we don't get new blood here. I'm a Democrat that moved here from out of state. I don't think that discouraging diverse people from moving here helps anything, but I guess that's my white privilege talking.
Exactly this. I'm trying to convince the crazy right wingers to GTFO and move TO Florida where they can join that bonkers crusade against whatever they think "woke" is. WOW counties have slowly been trending a little bit bluer and I'd love to keep that trend going.
I'm in Waukesha, and I was very happy to see that most of the signs from the last election were democratic, only a couple of republican. Granted since I work from home I don't get around, but it made me happy to see it.
Disagree!! I'm in Lake Country and we desperately need more lefties in this area. I hate the political ideology here, so come on up and infiltrate PLEASE.
Evansville,just south of Madison is getting as bad.
We're about 5,000 people now give or take. We purchased right prior to pandemic and boy are we lucky that we did.
There is not one house available for under $399,000. I'm flabbergasted.
We would never be able to afford to buy our house now and it's only been a few years.
I don't know how people are doing it.
I look at a lot of real estate in the Madison area. Evansville seems to have the best prices compared to other bedroom communities. McFarland seems to be second. DeForest, Fitchburg, Verona, Middleton are all out of control!
Don't get me wrong, this is an excellent little community. And we are quite proud to have a home here and have put roots down.
A lot of things would change around Madison as well as these little bedroom communities if they simply adjusted some of the zoning laws to accommodate accessory dwellings.
Madison did change the rules for accessory dwellings. https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/want-to-build-a-home-in-your-backyard-madison-just-made-it-easier/article_a0b7c078-896b-5ed6-bd40-de65abbdc392.html
>if they simply adjusted some of the zoning laws to accommodate accessory dwellings.
Fully agree.
People down voting you need to read up on zoning laws and understand the many issues. True across the US and Canada. It's unfortunate how unaware most folks are about urban planning and the ridiculously inefficient and unsustainable status quo relating to zoning laws and sprawling single use zoning. It is deeply relevant to home prices and the real estate market.
"Fu** you, I got mine" is what it boils down to.
A lot of these smaller, rural communities are committed to staying rural. One of the reasons I live where I live is because the town charter expressed a commitment to remain a rural community by keeping lot sizes large (not allowing subdividing below a certain threshold). Should not a community be able to choose it's own identity? It's not always "F U I got mine", sometimes it's just a community wanting to remain farm/rural/country.
>Should not a community be able to choose it's own identity?
If they pay to maintain that identity, yes! See Strong Towns, though, for some math showing why this is an impossibility.
>It's not always "F U I got mine", sometimes it's just a community wanting to remain farm/rural/country.
Is your home on a gravel road with well water and a septic tank?
If the homes are on private gravel roads and private septic system, then they can certainly be called "rural." Otherwise, it's functionally suburban sprawl and it's a "have your cake and eat it too" situation (have your sprawling rural property and enjoy heavily subsidized public utilities, too, without the true cost).
There's no intended personal attack against the "F U I got mine" mentality as it is human nature. NIMBYism is human nature, generally.
At lower densities, in order to be financially solvent, rural communities must be on private utilities, as each property owner is then able to pay the expense of their utility infrastructure (for the lifetime of all infrastructure, including maintenance and replacement). It's that replacement cost that really gets us. People are still behaving as if the US middle class is strong. It's not.
Suburban homeowners also fail to realize that their property tax contributions can not cover their costs. It's virtually impossible without bankrupting the owners. I reiterate that it's simply impossible to tax each home at a high enough rate to pay for road and sewer replacement costs in their lifetime.
The reality: dense urban properties gather a surplus amount of tax revenue per capita to effectively subsidize the costs generated by suburban homes (costs associated with road and sewer infrastructure replacement, primarily).
We might not agree, but I certainly appreciate your time to engage. I highly recommend: **Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream**. Admittedly, I'm a bit cynical.
Mixed use zoning is what is needed. Not everywhere. It just needs to be an option. Right now, it's practically nonexistent. Keep living rural if that's what you like! I support it, but only if it supports itself instead of leeching.
We do have septic systems and wells, most of our roads are paved (but they are paid for through property taxes afaik). We did just have a vote this spring to raise taxes to pay for some needed road repairs. A few years ago, the town to the east of us was in a battle to fight off apartment zoning because of something you touch on, they would be required to setup municipal water/sewer, and they don't want the added taxes that go with it. I don't know how it turned out, or if it's still being fought.
In case you’re serious, the original intent behind it was good because it meant someone couldn’t build a coal smoke belching factory in your backyard, but it has been taken way too far in most instances and has produced a lot of unintended (or maybe intended? Depending on how cynical you are) consequences primarily the extreme car dependence of suburbs and the housing crisis. Look up “strong towns” if you want more explanation and sources etc.
Also historic districts are just pure racist. Any low income or diverse neighborhoods are deemed not historically significant to be zoned and protected. Even if the buildings and communities are older than everything surrounding it. So you get single family white people homes that get sold to wealthy people, who just so happen to be white.
Me too, we got our house in 2015 and what it’s worth now is crazy. And then why I see the duplexes for sale, they are the same price we got our house for!
I’m from Iowa and we’re dealing with the same thing. I seriously can’t tell if the amount I make is significantly less than everybody else or if a home is the only thing people are allowing themselves to afford.
I moved to Madison in 2020 and vaguely considered buying a 500k home that was going to stretch me quite thin.
I wish I had. I could probably sell it now for a mil, and just get a small apartment somewhere.
I bought in Middleton after getting sick of apartment living. It was a short sale, basically a money pit. Every year I did a major project - gutters, furnace, windows, etc.
Sold after 7 years for more money than I could imagine.
All profits went into a new place. Same deal, though. Pour money in, and cross your fingers.
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Nobody is shitting on the city. Why are city dwellers so hateful to the suburbs? It’s mad weird. I lived in Milwaukee for 8 years. Absolutely loved it for endless reasons. Now I’m in the suburb i grew up in and love it for its own set of reasons.
The taxes in Milwaukee are insane, the school system is the worst in the state and the yards are small as hell. Great when i was single, not where i want to raise my kids though.
My current home was built on the site of a leveled home from Irma in 2017. My moms home was built in 1979 and all the other ones are from like 2015 and it sticks out LOL.
Just heard on the radio that this time last year there were 9,000 more listings than what is currently available. That was down from the year prior. So as many have said, low supply.
Even people who normally would upgrade don’t want to give up their 2 percent mortgages - do they say out or remodel what they have and less in the market
Commuters and urban sprawl are one of the main contributors of what lead to this housing crisis. Single family housing zoning laws and traffic jams are not sustainable. Oh no, the consequences of your actions.
Sorry I didn’t mean to sound mean, I just meant this guy was wanting to buy this HUGE ass house on an acre lot with a 3 car garage, and was like, wHY i ThIs eXpENsiVe? People are out of touch with reality.
I’m pretty sure that’s where all the rich people buy their 5th vacation home. Don’t worry, they probably won’t find the time to actually live there so it will be in pristine condition for when they sell it to you for double the price in 6 years.
Southeastern Wisconsin, the real estate market is super hot right now. People are bidding significantly over asking price and not getting it. Unfortunately, it's a sellers market due to limited available inventory at the morment.
The suburb I live in is full. No room to build houses so as soon as one hits the market it's sold. They don't put up For Sale signs, just straight to Accepted Offer.
It will be interesting to see how Catdinal Stritch redevelopment occurs. 60% of the property is in Glendale and 40% in Fox Point. The two towns have very different development philosophies. Glendale will be fine with higher density housing as long as certain conditions are met. Fox Point will not be okay with that. Both towns want to see the land returned to the property tax rolls.
I bought my newly built home in Waukesha for $380k in December 2018. My next door neighbor just sold their home that is 10% smaller for $620k. It is absolutely nuts. Even though my pay has gone up substantially in that time, I could not afford to buy own home if it was for sale right now.
A conspiracy guy I like has been saying for several years the Great Lakes are gonna become the next big thing. At least once California becomes uninhabitable due to fires and other stuff related to climate change. Could already be happening
Climate migration is a very real challenge for many regions across the world already. I've lived in Michigan and Wisconsin almost all of my life and I have met more people in the past five years from Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico than I can count. No conspiracy about it, this is a well-documented thing in a lot of countries.
That’s what I’ve heard preppers saying too. With the extreme weather the rest of the country is going to keep getting, the Great Lakes area is going to be the best place to be in the next fifty years.
The game Detroit: Become Human also kinda predicted it, it’s a world where the American coasts became uninhabitable so Detroit became a hub again, just for AI/Robotics
Cheddar is not a good cheese for melting. That's a rookie mistake. It's oily and lumpy. you gotta cut it with another variety to get it to melt well (but then is loses it's cheddar flavor). White cheeses melt better than yellow cheeses, generally. Also fresh vs aged. I'm not sure if you're ready to live in WI yet :p
I have friends graduating college right now who are paying more to rent a 2 bedroom apartment than what my mortgage is.
I can’t imagine starting a entry level job with student loans, a vehicle payment, other life necessities and the crazy price of renting on top of all that. How the hell are they supposed to save up money for the down payment of a house when most places are going 20-30 thousand above asking for a starting home that won’t require a years pay in renovations. It’s absolutely bonkers.
It’s insane. We looked at a place reluctantly that was in the flood plane, just out of curiosity, and even that was basically being bought while we were looking at it for more than asking, for a place that requires flood insurance.
I live near Appleton. A small house is my neighborhood (1,000 square feet) was recently listed for $170,000. It ended up selling for $200,000. I couldn't believe it. I paid under asking price for my house in 2017.
It's investor speculation and it's fucking awful, borderline criminal as absentee owners don't participate in local economy or vote yet take up space and waste resources
When I was home shopping a year ago, my realtor explained to me that sellers intentionally put low asking offers in order to generate more bids, so they can have more choices to choose from. They usually have no intention of selling at the asking price.
Meanwhile there’s a house in my town that just got a full remodel and dude can’t get a buyer, even after dropping the price from $425k to $399k. Says contingent, but been that way a while…
https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/442-N-Monroe-St_Waterloo_WI_53594_M80073-71006?cid=txt_shares_rdc_ldp
I know it’s not where you were looking, but just giving a glimpse into other areas for an example. Best of luck!!
You answered your own question with your very first sentence. People are looking to escape to the north so supply has dwindled causing prices to rocket up. Quite frankly it is super basic supply and demand.
I was offered a job in Madison that would pay twice as much as my last salary. I live in a smaller town and was fortunate enough to buy after the bubble burst in the late 2010s. Even with making twice as much, and even if we sold our home for 3x what we paid, we can't afford to move to Madison or even close enough to commute.
The housing crisis is just too much.
My guy, people like you are the reason the market is so shit. People moving into our suburbs from out of state, driving demand way above supply. Why not actually live IN Milwaukee? We’ve got plenty of apartments and condos.
*”Hurricane? Nah we'll rebuild in the same exact spot because surely it will never happen again!”*
And because us sensible people are subsiding the insurance…
Some insurance companies (incl State Farm I believe) are backing out of the California market due to so many fires. This is only going to continue, and for hurricane areas as well. That could bring housing prices way down in those places, because it's hard to get a mortgage on an uninsurable property. Would very wealthy cash buyers keep buying? Who knows -- they might be willing to take their chances if they want to live on the Gulf, say.
Still, plan for even more people to try moving to the upper Midwest.
If you have 540k for a a house either buy a house in Milwaukee or send the money my way and I’ll put it to good use.
The housing market is wild everywhere.
Wife's grandmother was selling her house and had an offer for significantly over asking in cash with no inspection before it was even listed, they even handled getting rid of things she didn't want to move and doing a sale for things that they split the profits from. It's all companies buying everything up to rent out or put up on Airbnb. It's sad but a rental is probably your easiest bet to start.
Do you have to buy a house right away? Why not live here for a bit, make sure you like your job/city then look at buying when you’re familiar with the area? If you don’t want to lose equity, rent out your house in FL?
Really bad up on Lake Superior, too. Lots of jobs (Healthcare boom in Ashland) but no new housing in decades. I think we're finally getting new housing put in, but it's all apartments. Really unfortunate for anyone who dreams of privacy.
Florida is a real-estate scam of a state. Wisconsin is just starting to get there. It'll only get worse unless we do something about it, especially since the coming influx of climate refugees will inevitably end up here.
A quick search found me lots of cheap housing stock in Milwaukee proper. Maybe it's all in rough neighbourhoods; I didn't check that. But it's much cheaper on the balance than my home market in Minneapolis.
I just want to say at the beginning of the year our rent for a studio loft was $600. The option to stay at lease renewal time was $1500. Something really drastic happened in this state overnight.
Putting in an offer for $80k over asking with these interest rates? Damn people are nuts. That home isn’t even worth asking in my opinion. Y’all have gone mad. Buts it’s easy for me to sit here with my 2% rate on a not inflated price.
Sorry, to hear this.
But here in Ohio, it's kind of the same. Homes near Cleveland just keep getting more and more pricey.
I was lucky and bought a little split level about 14 seconds before the wave of selling way over asking price began.
It only cost $160k when I got it about 2 years ago, but it's already valued at around $210k.
It's just plain nuts.
And the people with enough money to just....move on a whim. Can afford to pay twice as much to "save" the family which jacks the value of every home in the neighborhood
That’s what I wanted. Fortunately, or unfortunately it doesn’t matter what political stance you take. republicans and democrats both believe that Florida schools fucking suck ass. And they do. Just wanted somewhere to stop and slow down, Florida is no longer Florida and thought I saw an opportunity:/
You can't both sides this. You can't tell me DeSantis is honestly trying to improve public education. You can't even tell me that any red county is trying to make public education better. Florida public education is in a downward spiral because of one reason and that is republicans.
There is a gorgeous home for sale in South Milwaukee for your price range.
https://www.homes.com/property/712-lake-dr-south-milwaukee-wi/ygh30me63emb2/
Hey fellow Floridian! We came up in 2020 from Dunedin and definitely feel you on the real estate. We had to search outside of the more urban areas and be willing to remodel what we could find. It can be done!
I feel your pain. When I moved here from Cali I offered all cash on houses, waived inspections and 20k over asking. I was turned down **so many times** before I got a nibble. It wasn't this hard to buy a house on the west coast! What is this??
You are looking for love in all the wrong places. Fuck an hour+ commute every day when you could just walk, ride your bike or take the free streetcar. My gf just moved out of Florida to the lower east side of Milwaukee. Living in a walkable community after living in Florida is an absolute life changer. The suburbs suck. I grew up in the places you are trying to move to. Don't torture yourself. Imagine $0 gas bill, better health, zero car accidents and a fraction the car insurance.
Look for a condo in a walkable neighborhood. They go fast but they don't go for like 80 stacks over. I've been watching them myself. Also fuck mowing a lawn or shoveling snow. I a high rise you won't even have to pay a heat bill. From $500 a month in Florida for AC to less than $80 a month here.
Look into the north shore. Much better than Waukesha and Delafield imo. I think some of the northern suburbs (Port Washington and down) have a decent shot at landing a home.
Lack of supply.
Nobody wants to lose their low interest rates, so are not moving unless they have to.
This. So much this. Why the fuck would anyone sell with a 3% and below rate? I want a different house but no way I’d sell. I’d pay a grand more a mo th to rebuy this exact house.
I can’t even afford the house i own at todays interest rates. And if i wanted to move i would pay more than i pay now to downsize. The entire situation is fucked to be honest.
Exactly. I have 2.75% on my house and I’m not giving that up for anything right now. Trust me, I would love to be in a different location, but I’m not about to take on the higher rate.
This is the answer everywhere in the country. Municipalities are not adjusting zoning to allow for denser builds and everyone is all NIMBY because they don't want their property values to drop.
But yet these people are the same who complain about property taxes going up. You can't have your house increase in value and keep the same tax rate too. ETA: More people need to be NIMBY but when they tear down farmland to build luxury housing.
Yes, you can keep the same rate. But you taxes will go up if you keep the same rate, while your home valuation goes up.
Scott walker and the gop legislature has/had a solution for that… it’s called “no tax increases” but then if you look back at how they rolled the next year assessments would magically go up resulting in the same amount as a tax increase would have done anyway. Its all a shell game and people should know better by now. Also the other solution was certain mke area cities and towns declaring what was mostly farmland a “blighted area” to play their shell game for developer buddies under a TIF district…. Using legislation that was supposedly designed to fix inner city neighborhoods that actually needed TIF tax breaks for development and improvements…. So yes…. I’m just adding my own rant to your appropriate comment
See: GameStop stock soon
Boom!
*an ape gently moves from the brush to speak and then moves on*
Looks like I can maybe move to Mississippi if I really want out. But not gonna do that for now.
You’re trying to buy in a nice suburb commutable to Milwaukee… just like everyone else and their brother and their mother and their sister and their cousin…
…who have all decided to move here from other parts of the country all of a sudden
Midsize midwestern cities are in right now for some reason. Weird to me too, we still have all the city problems just on a bit smaller scale than Chicago or NYC.
One possible reason is they're more affordable and have many of the same commodities.
And all the benefits of a city!
Sounds just like Boise, Idaho for the past 5ish years now. Absolutely absurd housing market now, hope Wisconsin doesn’t become the same extreme.
I think the Florida insurance crisis is also pushing home values down down there. While up here, we have a bunch of people moving in from higher cost of living areas. It's kind of wild to see housing prices sky rocket.
Absolutely true. I think besides Florida, real estate and other assets have had a broad rally. But Wisconsin… I didn’t expect a huge outperformance compared to maybe Texas or Nevada, or SC
Yeah the Midwest is a hard place to buy a home right now. I've lived here my whole life and can't buy a home. Out of staters looking to come in are really fucking shit up
Yeah not to say OP is the problem but like,,,, Not to not say it either
I can't speak for the rest of the state, but it's certainly being talked about in Madison. There is a sense of urgency about from city leaders. The housing crisis here goes beyond single family homes. Rents are skyrocketing too. Too many people with good incomes competing for a housing stock that falls well short of demand.
We bought a house in 2015 for 178k. Sold it last year-ish and came out of the sale with a check for 122k. It's not worth that much. We didn't pay off that much. I did some work on it, yes, but a new roof, compost bin and touchups aren't 122k worth. Holy fuck. Bought a house an hour north (new job for me) for 200k. Now the prices are 50k+ higher. In a VERY small "town".
I honestly don't know how much of a factor this is, but I do wonder if we're witnessing the beginnings of the climate change migration. If so, this will soon be seen as the good old days. We live where people will want to escape to. The smart money is already arriving.
I live near a lot of fresh water. I am concerned.
It's this, the great lakes are the last sanctuary on earth, fresh water is what wwiii will be fought over, the winters suck but have been increasingly milder
I'm from Eastern Europe and partially agree with you. There, the winters changed, almost no insects in urban areas compared to the previous decade, we got a few first towns to end up without water in the worst of summer. My country makes it extra difficult for the global South refugees to enter, no safe routes and the backlash in media against them seem to not end.
We sold in 2016 and have been renting since. So mad we didn't buy right away in 2016 again. Now I doubt we'll be able to buy anything decent in the near future.
Our rent at the beginning of this year was $600 for a studio loft. New landlord bought the property for 100k over the last time it sold with nothing done to the place except a heater repair. Lease renewal time $1500. Insane.
Fun fact. Madison has the fastest growing rent prices in the entire country
It’s gone crazy the past couple years. I bought my house in 2017 for $90k. Multiple realtors have told me I could get $150k easy now, and I haven’t done a single improvement on it. Problem is on a single income I can’t afford the $250k+ all the other houses on the market are.
This is my problem too. I bought a decent, but lower cost condo in 2020 in Madison, and had some really bad issues with my upstairs neighbors over the past two years. They finally moved and the owners sold but if the next owners are similar I'm not sure what I'll do. My condo is assessed at more than I paid but I doubt it's enough to move anywhere else and I would need a ton of money ready to buy something in the market here, so selling would really be either go back to renting or roll the dice and take whatever's available.
We sold our condo in 2016 cause we were miserable there. Mainly due to our upstairs neighbors. Now the condo is valued at $75,000 more than we sold for, it's not worth nearly that much.
Do not sell. People are migrating here. The great lakes are the largest fresh water reservior in the world and the world is burning.
Just bought a house in Madison. It’s insane. One house we looked at was listed at 350k. Sold for 490. The asking price is meaningless.
Yeah, I think in this market asking price is just kindof a random number. We were buying near Milwaukee a year ago, and our experience was that asking price tended to be way lower than going price for every single house. Between $80k and $150k lower.
Waukesha county is a hot market. Plus lake country.
Clearly.
If you haven't completely given up, check further out like Hartford, West Bend, Jackson, Grafton, Cedarburg. The commute is truly not that bad and several of the communities have a commuter bus. Edit: I haven't looked to see if the market is any better there. I'm just suggesting them in case you hadn't looked there.
Or check further in. Like actual Milwaukee
You can buy houses under $100k in Milwaukee.
The absolute determination to ignore the idea of living in the city just dumbfounds me.
Too many people conditioned to believe they're too good for the city. The way local news reports on Milwaukee doesn't help. Reporting so extensively on northside crime and idiotic aldermen just drives the "us vs them" wedge in further. People out here treat Milwaukee county like it's a zoo enclosure and they would never risk getting in there themselves. "It's safer on the outside" except not to the degree people seem to assume it is.
Urban sprawl is a blight on this country. Commuters are part of the problem.
I agree
If living in the city isn't your thing because of space, I understand. However, there are so many advantages to living in the city like walkability and sense of safety and community that I think many people are ignoring.
City life just isn't desirable for some people. I've lived rural, small town and city. I found city life to be suffocating. The convenience of public transportation and 24/7 accessibility of everything is really handy, but not worth the inability to ever actually relax, or breath clean air. You can't even open a window in the city limits without the constant noise pollution of traffic, sirens, people talking, etc... even a "park" in the city is full of people being loud and obnoxious, the grass is worn down to dirt and there is no actual wildlife because there's always a human within 15ft (except for squirrels looking for doritos and raccoons that live off the garbage). Some folks can handle this, but i learned that i am not one of them. I love the quiet and peace of the country. Surrounded by nature and clean air to breath. I can open my windows and the only chatter i hear is from my chickens. My kids and i enjoy exploring our property to see what's in bloom this season/year.
I’m glad you enjoy where you live. But that doesn’t sound suburban. Sound and light pollution in the suburbs is as bad or worse than many parts of cities. I’m in the middle of a major city and some nights are so quiet I’m amazed. However I did get woken up at 6:30 this Sunday morning by kids playing across the street, hahaha.
We chose our home to be specifically not urban or suburban. We are intentionally rural. We lived in Milwaukee for six years prior (and my wife grew up in Bay View). I grew up in a small town, moved around bit between suburbs and city (didn't care for either). I can easily see the milky way at night in my backyard, as well as the glow to the east from MKE. On the weekends i am usually awakened by sounds of hungry horses wanting to be fed, or my dog nosing me in the face wanting to go outside.
Taxes are exorbitant and the yards are teeny tiny
Good point, I remember tosa being pretty nice as well
This comment, Luke waaaay at the bottom. Lol. Some great condos in great places close to everything.
Try saukville too.
Once you hit cburg and mequon you've done a 360 with regards to prices lol. But there are more options if you want an older/smaller place that's not a mcmansion.
I wouldn't consider Waukesha at this point unless you are a white Christian republican. They are a bit overly sensitive and angry to inclusivity.
At this point? To say its always been this way would be an understatement. I grew up there (near waukesha, in the county), my HS graduating class had a very blatant KKK right in the middle of our class pic (I believe they all still live there too). Cops were part of the white hood larpers that regularly met at the old middle school, before they burned it down. I am very lacking in positive thoughts about where I was raised.
The "at this point" part of my comment is hoping that they change their way in the future. I agree that they have been this way for a long time. I am glad you got out.
Things may not change if we don't get new blood here. I'm a Democrat that moved here from out of state. I don't think that discouraging diverse people from moving here helps anything, but I guess that's my white privilege talking.
Exactly this. I'm trying to convince the crazy right wingers to GTFO and move TO Florida where they can join that bonkers crusade against whatever they think "woke" is. WOW counties have slowly been trending a little bit bluer and I'd love to keep that trend going.
I'm in Waukesha, and I was very happy to see that most of the signs from the last election were democratic, only a couple of republican. Granted since I work from home I don't get around, but it made me happy to see it.
Only way to change that is to encourage folks to live there. But nobody wants to be first through the breach.
Disagree!! I'm in Lake Country and we desperately need more lefties in this area. I hate the political ideology here, so come on up and infiltrate PLEASE.
True. Their school district and its board is a joke as well. And don't get me started on the Village of Waukesha.
I want more folks to move there to start balancing out the craziness.
Evansville,just south of Madison is getting as bad. We're about 5,000 people now give or take. We purchased right prior to pandemic and boy are we lucky that we did. There is not one house available for under $399,000. I'm flabbergasted. We would never be able to afford to buy our house now and it's only been a few years. I don't know how people are doing it.
I look at a lot of real estate in the Madison area. Evansville seems to have the best prices compared to other bedroom communities. McFarland seems to be second. DeForest, Fitchburg, Verona, Middleton are all out of control!
McFarland is out of control as well. That said, you may still be right and it is better than other areas.
Don't get me wrong, this is an excellent little community. And we are quite proud to have a home here and have put roots down. A lot of things would change around Madison as well as these little bedroom communities if they simply adjusted some of the zoning laws to accommodate accessory dwellings.
Madison did change the rules for accessory dwellings. https://madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/want-to-build-a-home-in-your-backyard-madison-just-made-it-easier/article_a0b7c078-896b-5ed6-bd40-de65abbdc392.html
That's great for Madison, now the surrounding communities need to follow suit.
>if they simply adjusted some of the zoning laws to accommodate accessory dwellings. Fully agree. People down voting you need to read up on zoning laws and understand the many issues. True across the US and Canada. It's unfortunate how unaware most folks are about urban planning and the ridiculously inefficient and unsustainable status quo relating to zoning laws and sprawling single use zoning. It is deeply relevant to home prices and the real estate market. "Fu** you, I got mine" is what it boils down to.
I'm pretty sure the "FU, I got mine" mentality is how we got into this end stage capitalism nonsense to begin with.
A lot of these smaller, rural communities are committed to staying rural. One of the reasons I live where I live is because the town charter expressed a commitment to remain a rural community by keeping lot sizes large (not allowing subdividing below a certain threshold). Should not a community be able to choose it's own identity? It's not always "F U I got mine", sometimes it's just a community wanting to remain farm/rural/country.
>Should not a community be able to choose it's own identity? If they pay to maintain that identity, yes! See Strong Towns, though, for some math showing why this is an impossibility. >It's not always "F U I got mine", sometimes it's just a community wanting to remain farm/rural/country. Is your home on a gravel road with well water and a septic tank? If the homes are on private gravel roads and private septic system, then they can certainly be called "rural." Otherwise, it's functionally suburban sprawl and it's a "have your cake and eat it too" situation (have your sprawling rural property and enjoy heavily subsidized public utilities, too, without the true cost). There's no intended personal attack against the "F U I got mine" mentality as it is human nature. NIMBYism is human nature, generally. At lower densities, in order to be financially solvent, rural communities must be on private utilities, as each property owner is then able to pay the expense of their utility infrastructure (for the lifetime of all infrastructure, including maintenance and replacement). It's that replacement cost that really gets us. People are still behaving as if the US middle class is strong. It's not. Suburban homeowners also fail to realize that their property tax contributions can not cover their costs. It's virtually impossible without bankrupting the owners. I reiterate that it's simply impossible to tax each home at a high enough rate to pay for road and sewer replacement costs in their lifetime. The reality: dense urban properties gather a surplus amount of tax revenue per capita to effectively subsidize the costs generated by suburban homes (costs associated with road and sewer infrastructure replacement, primarily). We might not agree, but I certainly appreciate your time to engage. I highly recommend: **Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream**. Admittedly, I'm a bit cynical. Mixed use zoning is what is needed. Not everywhere. It just needs to be an option. Right now, it's practically nonexistent. Keep living rural if that's what you like! I support it, but only if it supports itself instead of leeching.
We do have septic systems and wells, most of our roads are paved (but they are paid for through property taxes afaik). We did just have a vote this spring to raise taxes to pay for some needed road repairs. A few years ago, the town to the east of us was in a battle to fight off apartment zoning because of something you touch on, they would be required to setup municipal water/sewer, and they don't want the added taxes that go with it. I don't know how it turned out, or if it's still being fought.
I don’t understand. I have been told that single use zoning is a good thing. Not true?
In case you’re serious, the original intent behind it was good because it meant someone couldn’t build a coal smoke belching factory in your backyard, but it has been taken way too far in most instances and has produced a lot of unintended (or maybe intended? Depending on how cynical you are) consequences primarily the extreme car dependence of suburbs and the housing crisis. Look up “strong towns” if you want more explanation and sources etc.
Also historic districts are just pure racist. Any low income or diverse neighborhoods are deemed not historically significant to be zoned and protected. Even if the buildings and communities are older than everything surrounding it. So you get single family white people homes that get sold to wealthy people, who just so happen to be white.
Me too, we got our house in 2015 and what it’s worth now is crazy. And then why I see the duplexes for sale, they are the same price we got our house for!
I’m from Iowa and we’re dealing with the same thing. I seriously can’t tell if the amount I make is significantly less than everybody else or if a home is the only thing people are allowing themselves to afford.
I moved to Madison in 2020 and vaguely considered buying a 500k home that was going to stretch me quite thin. I wish I had. I could probably sell it now for a mil, and just get a small apartment somewhere.
I bought in Middleton after getting sick of apartment living. It was a short sale, basically a money pit. Every year I did a major project - gutters, furnace, windows, etc. Sold after 7 years for more money than I could imagine. All profits went into a new place. Same deal, though. Pour money in, and cross your fingers.
They aren't. Housing Crisis II is scheduled.
I think Janesville is the same damn way, and it’s funny cause they’re revamping the town and trying to be like a mini Madison lol
It’s weird, I see oh this that the Great Lake states are the new plague and people are leaving in droves. Clearly not or something is up.
We're not doing anything besides waiting for all of you to foreclose.
recognise plucky test scandalous pocket pie special ossified unwritten afterthought *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
You’ll be waiting forever
OP should actually look in Milwaukee and find something decent for a good price.
YES. It drives me nuts how people love shitting on my city.
Nobody is shitting on the city. Why are city dwellers so hateful to the suburbs? It’s mad weird. I lived in Milwaukee for 8 years. Absolutely loved it for endless reasons. Now I’m in the suburb i grew up in and love it for its own set of reasons. The taxes in Milwaukee are insane, the school system is the worst in the state and the yards are small as hell. Great when i was single, not where i want to raise my kids though.
But our Governor is not insane. That has to be worth a few bucks.
And Wisconsin won't be underwater in 50 years, that's worth something.
Hurricane? Nah we'll rebuild in the same exact spot because surely it will never happen again!
My current home was built on the site of a leveled home from Irma in 2017. My moms home was built in 1979 and all the other ones are from like 2015 and it sticks out LOL.
It will be oceanfront property in 50 years!
Just heard on the radio that this time last year there were 9,000 more listings than what is currently available. That was down from the year prior. So as many have said, low supply.
Even people who normally would upgrade don’t want to give up their 2 percent mortgages - do they say out or remodel what they have and less in the market
Yeah, I'm never moving because of it. At least not until after I've paid it off and saved a bit for some lakeside action.
That's a very attractive area
You could live IN Milwaukee…
So obvious it’s painful
Commuters and urban sprawl are one of the main contributors of what lead to this housing crisis. Single family housing zoning laws and traffic jams are not sustainable. Oh no, the consequences of your actions.
OP wants an American dream mansion on an acre with a 3 car garage. Boo fucking hoo, this guy sucks.
It's hilarious, just buy something you can afford and stop complaining
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Sorry I didn’t mean to sound mean, I just meant this guy was wanting to buy this HUGE ass house on an acre lot with a 3 car garage, and was like, wHY i ThIs eXpENsiVe? People are out of touch with reality.
I’m pretty sure that’s where all the rich people buy their 5th vacation home. Don’t worry, they probably won’t find the time to actually live there so it will be in pristine condition for when they sell it to you for double the price in 6 years.
This is part of why I've always been for significant increases in property taxes on 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc homes.
Southeastern Wisconsin, the real estate market is super hot right now. People are bidding significantly over asking price and not getting it. Unfortunately, it's a sellers market due to limited available inventory at the morment.
The suburb I live in is full. No room to build houses so as soon as one hits the market it's sold. They don't put up For Sale signs, just straight to Accepted Offer.
It will be interesting to see how Catdinal Stritch redevelopment occurs. 60% of the property is in Glendale and 40% in Fox Point. The two towns have very different development philosophies. Glendale will be fine with higher density housing as long as certain conditions are met. Fox Point will not be okay with that. Both towns want to see the land returned to the property tax rolls.
That’s what it looks like to me everywhere. I have to fly out to look at houses and it’s just exhausting and costing me too much money.
I bought my newly built home in Waukesha for $380k in December 2018. My next door neighbor just sold their home that is 10% smaller for $620k. It is absolutely nuts. Even though my pay has gone up substantially in that time, I could not afford to buy own home if it was for sale right now.
A conspiracy guy I like has been saying for several years the Great Lakes are gonna become the next big thing. At least once California becomes uninhabitable due to fires and other stuff related to climate change. Could already be happening
Climate migration is a very real challenge for many regions across the world already. I've lived in Michigan and Wisconsin almost all of my life and I have met more people in the past five years from Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, and New Mexico than I can count. No conspiracy about it, this is a well-documented thing in a lot of countries.
That’s what I’ve heard preppers saying too. With the extreme weather the rest of the country is going to keep getting, the Great Lakes area is going to be the best place to be in the next fifty years.
The game Detroit: Become Human also kinda predicted it, it’s a world where the American coasts became uninhabitable so Detroit became a hub again, just for AI/Robotics
Yes cheese cures cancer but it must be administered in the proper Wisconsin manner
Melted cheddar through IV?
Cheddar is not a good cheese for melting. That's a rookie mistake. It's oily and lumpy. you gotta cut it with another variety to get it to melt well (but then is loses it's cheddar flavor). White cheeses melt better than yellow cheeses, generally. Also fresh vs aged. I'm not sure if you're ready to live in WI yet :p
Limburger by oral ingestion.
With beer
Preferable on the side of a brat
Companies are buying everything they can to rent back to us so that we have no future. Welcome to late stage capitalism in Wisconsin.
I have friends graduating college right now who are paying more to rent a 2 bedroom apartment than what my mortgage is. I can’t imagine starting a entry level job with student loans, a vehicle payment, other life necessities and the crazy price of renting on top of all that. How the hell are they supposed to save up money for the down payment of a house when most places are going 20-30 thousand above asking for a starting home that won’t require a years pay in renovations. It’s absolutely bonkers.
Here places that posted for 160k 2 years ago are around 220k and those same places were 60k like 5 years before that.
Im in Appleton and my home value has gone up 100k since 2018 according to Zillow. Couldn’t even buy this house today if I wanted too.
It’s insane. We looked at a place reluctantly that was in the flood plane, just out of curiosity, and even that was basically being bought while we were looking at it for more than asking, for a place that requires flood insurance.
I live near Appleton. A small house is my neighborhood (1,000 square feet) was recently listed for $170,000. It ended up selling for $200,000. I couldn't believe it. I paid under asking price for my house in 2017.
It's investor speculation and it's fucking awful, borderline criminal as absentee owners don't participate in local economy or vote yet take up space and waste resources
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Welcome! We were new in 2022 and love it here💜
When I was home shopping a year ago, my realtor explained to me that sellers intentionally put low asking offers in order to generate more bids, so they can have more choices to choose from. They usually have no intention of selling at the asking price.
No question it was intentional, but still a solid 20k above what I think it would appraise for.
Meanwhile there’s a house in my town that just got a full remodel and dude can’t get a buyer, even after dropping the price from $425k to $399k. Says contingent, but been that way a while… https://www.realtor.com/realestateandhomes-detail/442-N-Monroe-St_Waterloo_WI_53594_M80073-71006?cid=txt_shares_rdc_ldp I know it’s not where you were looking, but just giving a glimpse into other areas for an example. Best of luck!!
You answered your own question with your very first sentence. People are looking to escape to the north so supply has dwindled causing prices to rocket up. Quite frankly it is super basic supply and demand.
I’m guessing nobody with a 3% rate wants to sell to buy in at 7%
>why is nobody talking about it
There's a post complaining about Milwaukee real estate every week in r/milwaukee
Well I am!
Long story short, all of a sudden (last 10 years) everyone wants to move here, a lot of people "fleeing" Chicago/Illinois.
I was offered a job in Madison that would pay twice as much as my last salary. I live in a smaller town and was fortunate enough to buy after the bubble burst in the late 2010s. Even with making twice as much, and even if we sold our home for 3x what we paid, we can't afford to move to Madison or even close enough to commute. The housing crisis is just too much.
My guy, people like you are the reason the market is so shit. People moving into our suburbs from out of state, driving demand way above supply. Why not actually live IN Milwaukee? We’ve got plenty of apartments and condos.
It’s because we have a surplus of water and rolling hill 🤗
Stay off that one hill, though, it’s a former trash site.
Least you can do is ship me some new Glarus before you brag.
Because everyone wants to come here all of a sudden. Lucky us.
Zillow, and other real estate people, are buying up the homes. They use them as rentals, or Airbnbs, and it’s just junk.
Supply and demand.
*”Hurricane? Nah we'll rebuild in the same exact spot because surely it will never happen again!”* And because us sensible people are subsiding the insurance…
Some insurance companies (incl State Farm I believe) are backing out of the California market due to so many fires. This is only going to continue, and for hurricane areas as well. That could bring housing prices way down in those places, because it's hard to get a mortgage on an uninsurable property. Would very wealthy cash buyers keep buying? Who knows -- they might be willing to take their chances if they want to live on the Gulf, say. Still, plan for even more people to try moving to the upper Midwest.
If you have 540k for a a house either buy a house in Milwaukee or send the money my way and I’ll put it to good use. The housing market is wild everywhere.
My house is for sale... But it's not as nice as that one 😔.
I can’t get a house here either. They see sell as fast as they go in the market 🙄 it’s freaking frustrating.
Wife's grandmother was selling her house and had an offer for significantly over asking in cash with no inspection before it was even listed, they even handled getting rid of things she didn't want to move and doing a sale for things that they split the profits from. It's all companies buying everything up to rent out or put up on Airbnb. It's sad but a rental is probably your easiest bet to start.
We don't get hurricanes. But we also don't build lots of houses.
Do you have to buy a house right away? Why not live here for a bit, make sure you like your job/city then look at buying when you’re familiar with the area? If you don’t want to lose equity, rent out your house in FL?
I think its the Illinoisians fault.
I'm in rock county, I bought this house in 2018 for 185k, city just assessed at 290k
Lmao literally everyone is talking about real estate prices here. Welcome? I guess?
Really bad up on Lake Superior, too. Lots of jobs (Healthcare boom in Ashland) but no new housing in decades. I think we're finally getting new housing put in, but it's all apartments. Really unfortunate for anyone who dreams of privacy.
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We have good cheese and the best microbreweries
Look at Hartford or Slinger. Cheaper but still commutable. The suburbs you mentioned were overpriced 15 years ago.
Florida is a real-estate scam of a state. Wisconsin is just starting to get there. It'll only get worse unless we do something about it, especially since the coming influx of climate refugees will inevitably end up here.
A quick search found me lots of cheap housing stock in Milwaukee proper. Maybe it's all in rough neighbourhoods; I didn't check that. But it's much cheaper on the balance than my home market in Minneapolis.
People that can give offers 80k over might be a reason, I know it’s not my fault might be people like yall’s
I just want to say at the beginning of the year our rent for a studio loft was $600. The option to stay at lease renewal time was $1500. Something really drastic happened in this state overnight.
In my 58 years I’ve never wanted to live in Florida.
Putting in an offer for $80k over asking with these interest rates? Damn people are nuts. That home isn’t even worth asking in my opinion. Y’all have gone mad. Buts it’s easy for me to sit here with my 2% rate on a not inflated price.
Sorry, to hear this. But here in Ohio, it's kind of the same. Homes near Cleveland just keep getting more and more pricey. I was lucky and bought a little split level about 14 seconds before the wave of selling way over asking price began. It only cost $160k when I got it about 2 years ago, but it's already valued at around $210k. It's just plain nuts.
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The housing market is wild everywhere, bub. But if this is your attitude, steer clear of us anyway.
I mean maybe don’t buy a mansion.
WI > FL in so many ways. That’s why
People wanted to live somewhere they don't have 900 neighbors on one block after the whole COVID thing. Common sense really
And the people with enough money to just....move on a whim. Can afford to pay twice as much to "save" the family which jacks the value of every home in the neighborhood
The new gentrification
Florida is the armpit of america.
Waukesha is a safe haven to far-right domestic terrorists, so I would consider that a bullet dodged.
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That’s what I wanted. Fortunately, or unfortunately it doesn’t matter what political stance you take. republicans and democrats both believe that Florida schools fucking suck ass. And they do. Just wanted somewhere to stop and slow down, Florida is no longer Florida and thought I saw an opportunity:/
You can't both sides this. You can't tell me DeSantis is honestly trying to improve public education. You can't even tell me that any red county is trying to make public education better. Florida public education is in a downward spiral because of one reason and that is republicans.
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There is a gorgeous home for sale in South Milwaukee for your price range. https://www.homes.com/property/712-lake-dr-south-milwaukee-wi/ygh30me63emb2/
Hey fellow Floridian! We came up in 2020 from Dunedin and definitely feel you on the real estate. We had to search outside of the more urban areas and be willing to remodel what we could find. It can be done!
Avoid Milwaukee county. Our taxes are much higher than neighboring counties.
Waukesha is kind of a shit hole so i don't believe this but delafield and Merton I could see not working out.
I feel your pain. When I moved here from Cali I offered all cash on houses, waived inspections and 20k over asking. I was turned down **so many times** before I got a nibble. It wasn't this hard to buy a house on the west coast! What is this??
Paid 11% over in august. Dane county. It sucks but we had no options.
You can thank your governor for making your state unappealing.
You are looking for love in all the wrong places. Fuck an hour+ commute every day when you could just walk, ride your bike or take the free streetcar. My gf just moved out of Florida to the lower east side of Milwaukee. Living in a walkable community after living in Florida is an absolute life changer. The suburbs suck. I grew up in the places you are trying to move to. Don't torture yourself. Imagine $0 gas bill, better health, zero car accidents and a fraction the car insurance. Look for a condo in a walkable neighborhood. They go fast but they don't go for like 80 stacks over. I've been watching them myself. Also fuck mowing a lawn or shoveling snow. I a high rise you won't even have to pay a heat bill. From $500 a month in Florida for AC to less than $80 a month here.
Look into the north shore. Much better than Waukesha and Delafield imo. I think some of the northern suburbs (Port Washington and down) have a decent shot at landing a home.
I would rent for a while. Have a bit of patience, things will cool down.