Compiled By Dawn Anastasi, RPA Board Member

Here are some recent Wisconsin-based housing news articles:

Why Madison rents are rising so fast and won’t slow down

“When I talk about Madison experiencing a housing crisis, this is what I mean,” said Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, who made city incentives to develop more rental units a staple of her reelection platform this spring. “We are seeing symptom after symptom of years of failing to produce enough housing and, in some ways, this is the inevitable result.”

Research shows Badger State is short on houses, developers fight to keep up with demand

According to the Wisconsin Counties Association and Forward Analytics, 140,000 homes need to be built by 2030 to keep up with demand for folks under 65. It's a staggering number to avoid a state-wide housing shortage. Researchers aren't optimistic, but developers said they think it's doable.

"This is something that's been coming for a long time," Dale Knapp said. Knapp's the research director for the Wisconsin Counties Association and Forward Analytics. Over the last several years, he and his team tracked housing numbers across the state, finding supply simply isn't meeting demand.

"The shortage is being driven by the large baby boom that is retiring and essentially leaving the workforce, but like other generations, staying in their homes and they'll continue to," Knapp explained.

Knapp said this is a problem because the baby-boom generation is 20 percent larger than previous generations, leaving fewer homes for people in the workforce.

Rent increases in Wisconsin cities among the steepest in the US

According to data sets from two rental-listing aggregator businesses, average monthly costs for 1- and 3-bedroom rentals in Wisconsin have jumped by as much as 25% since 2021.

In the United States as a whole, annual rent increases have remained under 10%, said Jonas Bordo, CEO and cofounder of rental marketplace Dwellsy, which provided national-level and Wisconsin city-level data for this analysis. That’s still twice a pre-covid era annual rate increase of around 4-5%.

50 New Homes For Early-Childhood Educators

A new partnership aims to build 50 affordable, owner-occupied homes for early-childhood educators that will help the future owners build wealth, while chipping away at the minority homeownership gap, improving neighborhoods and encouraging more workers to pursue a career in child care.

The homes, 1,000-square-foot, single-story structures, would be built on vacant lots near five early childhood centers. Each house would have three bedrooms, one full bathroom and a full basement.

According to a financing model included in the RFP, the funding will be allocated as a $109,000-per-home grant to a developer to close the gap between the estimated $209,000 cost to develop and build the house and the resulting $101,850 sale price.

The new homeowners would go through homebuying counseling and have an $87,000 30-year mortgage at 4% interest. The monthly mortgage payment, inclusive of taxes and insurance, is estimated to be $736 per month. Appliances are to be provided, as is a $15,000 downpayment.