Wisconsin Home Sales See Slight Drop In November

Wisconsin home sales in 2019 continue to narrowly trail those of last year.

The latest report from the Wisconsin Realtors Association found just more than 6,445 sales of existing homes last month, down 0.8 percent from November 2018.

“The general picture is that sales are still a bit behind where they were last year, but we’ve closed the gap a little bit,” said economist David Clark of Marquette University, who consulted on the report.

Total sales for the year trail 2018 sales by 1.4 percent going into December.

Clark said December isn’t usually a busy enough sales month to make up the difference.

“We’d have to grow at close to 20 percent for the month of December to completely close the gap, and that’s simply because December traditionally is a month where you don’t do a significant volume,” he said.

Demand for homes has stayed strong, while supply has been dropping for the last few years. That pushed home prices up again, with the median price in November up 6 percent to $194,000.