The Wisconsin Realtors Association announced the release of its October 2023 Wisconsin Real Estate Report. October new listings rose 2% from a year earlier, which represents the first evidence of positive annual growth since February 2022, when new listings increased 1.1%. This pushed total listings to 17,788 homes, which is just 4.3% below the October 2022 levels.
Mortgage rates continued to rise in October, softening demand pressure slightly moving into the off-peak housing market.
Report highlights include:
- Existing home sales fell by just 7.2% in October 2023 compared to October 2022, which is the first time since August 2022 that the annualized decline in sales has been in the single digits. The median price rose 7.7% to $280,000 over that same 12-month period.
- Year-to-date sales are still down by double digits, falling 20% compared to the first 10 months of 2022, and the statewide median price rose to $287,000, which is 8.3% higher than the January- through-October period last year.
- Mortgage rates averaged 7.62% in October, which is up from 7.20% in September, and up from 6.90% a year earlier.
- This continues to be a strong seller’s market with just 3.3 months of supply, which is well short of the benchmark of six months that signals a balanced market. Still, there has been continued improvement in supply compared to a year earlier with just 2.7 months of supply.
The full report is available here.
