By MICHELE DERUS
mderus@journalsentinel.com
Metro Milwaukee's 14-year-old housing resale boom is chugging along but no longer charging ahead.
The Multiple Listing Service reported Friday that 1,659 homes changed ownership in October, about even with a year earlier, as buyers browsed a lot more choices. For the year, sales are up 7.7% over 2004.
"You're getting more for your money than you did last summer," said Shelby L. Baker, chairman of Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors and general sales manager for First Weber Group in Waukesha.
Prices have softened among some listings for sale; in some cases, "a $225,000 house has moved down to a $200,000 house," Baker said.
That price point is still popular, even as mortgage-interest rates rise, Baker said. "But there are more of them on the market now (and) we're not seeing as many multiple offers."
Most communities in the four-county region sport a lot of "for sale" signs. Records from the MLS office in Wauwatosa show 29,973 residential properties have come onto the market this year - 22% more than last year and 35% more than two years ago. Waukesha County's 25% gain in new listings is the biggest, and Ozaukee County's 15% gain is the smallest.
"With more inventory, buyers have more choices. They're more selective," said Joe Horning, president of Shorewest Realtors in Brookfield. "If you want your house to sell, if you're serious, price it right."
Houses are neither fetching as much nor selling as fast as last spring - signs that the market is simmering down, the brokers said. What's occurring now is steady growth, with sales still climbing amid sustained but discriminating buyer interest.
Best year ever
County-by-county sales gains: Milwaukee, 5.9%; Waukesha, 11.3%; Ozaukee, 7.6%; Washington, 9.6%; and, outside the metro area, Racine, 6.3%, Kenosha, 0.1%; Sheboygan, 10.5%. While Walworth County sales are down 2.4% this year, they are still 9.2% higher than 2003.
In metro Milwaukee, "There's still a couple months left, but I still believe we're going to have a record-high year," Baker said.
"Our best year ever," agreed Horning.
Year-to-date sales numbers suggest a good chance of that.
MLS, which tracks Realtor-brokered sales of one- , two- and multi-unit housing, reported 17,612 transactions in this year's first 10 months, up from 16,357 in the first 10 months of 2004.
Last year, its records show, sales volume was the highest ever in Milwaukee, Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee counties.
"October was flat, but look at August and September - they were terrific," Horning said. "What we are seeing is more seasonality than we have in the past two, three years, when we had a great market all 12 months. It's normal that things slow down around now, with kids going back to school and all the holidays. That's what is happening this year."
This year's market may yield one last upward kick - the fence-jumper phenomenon. That happens when shoppers sitting on the sidelines waiting for the perfect deal realize that rising mortgage-interest rates are erasing any chance of that, Horning said.
In 2003 and 2004, the nation's key 30-year mortgage interest rate averaged 5.8%. But now it's climbing, hitting 6.36% in Thursday's mortgage measure by loan-industry giant Freddie Mac
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