jolenta's Blog: MLS Stats & Housing Data

December was the worst month for housing starts in the 20 years Dominic Collar of MTD Marketing Services of Wisconsin has been tracking housing starts data in Dane County, Wisconsin. An average December is about 250-260, says Collar, but December ’08 saw a mere 20 housing starts. That's a 74% drop from December 2007’s 78 housing starts and a 90% drop from the December 2003 high of 210.
  According to Collar's records, 20 years ago housing starts in Dane County averaged 1200-1300 per year. 10 years ago housing starts averaged 1900 per year. In 2008 housing starts were 667, down 42.8% from 2007’s 1167 housing starts. The prior year didn’t fare much better. 2006’s 1396 housing starts was also a dramatic decline from 2005’s 2319 housing starts, a drop of… Read Full Post

Sales of single-family homes in Madison Wisconsin were down a substantial 19.3% from 2007 to 2008. Sales of Madison condominiums dropped a whopping 29.3% from 2007 to 2008. The average sale price for a single-family home in Madison fell only slightly, however, from $255,223 in '07 to $248,073 in 2008, a reflection of the slower, yet relatively healthy, demand for good quality single-family homes. A slim majority of the 3,343 single-family homes listed in Madison in 2008 were sold (53.10%). By contrast, only 31.29% of the 2,352 condos listed in Madison in 2008 were sold, a clear indication of the persistent oversupply of Madison WI condos. Average days on market for all single-family homes in Madison WI increased marginally from 66 in 2007 to 71 in 2008.…

The ability to easily digest MLS statistics for Madison WI homes is now available on my website. Like me, you may have noticed the recent proliferation of sites such as Zillow.com that attempt to value homes in an automated fashion. Or you may have noticed other sites that are attempting to commoditize the business of valuing real estate. I have and I decided it was time to start providing value-added market data reporting by collecting MLS data and charting it on my site, as well as offering some commentary on Madison real estate market trends as I observe them in 2009 and going forward.

Lake & City Homes now has a Madison Market Data page where key MLS data for the Madison, WI real estate market are being tracked and reported. Buyers and sellers…