WAUPUN — The Waupun City Council discussed the growing strain on the local housing market this week at Tuesday’s Common Council meeting.
The housing market in Waupun has been a continuing problem with a historically low number of houses being sold in the city, a sure sign of rising demand and prices.
“I’ve been watching the housing market and I pay attention to what’s available for sale on pretty much a daily basis,” City Administrator Kathy Schlieve said. “There’s just nothing available, and we’ve seen prices go up considerably.”
Jodi Mallas, who is a real estate broker for local realty business My Property Shoppe, spoke to the Council regarding the housing market in the area and conditions in the City of Waupun.
“In the past twelve months we’ve sold 96 single family homes,” Mallas said. “When we go back a year to 2021-2022 from June to June, we had sold 138 homes, and in 2020-2021 we sold 141, so we’ve seen our numbers drop drastically.”
Mallas described the previous years as already being in a tight market, but with numbers continuing to fall the City is looking for answers.
“The problem with that is just inventory, there’s a lack thereof,” she said.
According to Mallas, there were just 7 homes on the market as of July 21st. One is an auction with a high buyer’s fee, and two were still under construction and not available for occupancy. The remaining four ranged in price from $175k to $285k, a steep price that reflects the rising cost of property nationwide.
“That [price] leaves a big pocket of buyers out that can’t even afford those homes.” Mallas continued. “We have a lot of people calling, and a lot of people getting preapproved between the $150k and $165k range, but you can’t even buy a fixer-upper for that these days.”
The sold price for properties over the last 12 months ranged from $70k to $565k, with an average of $207k and a median of $182k. The average number of days on market was 27 days but the median was only ten, with many houses being sold on the day they’re listed.
“Almost every offer is over list price, and buyers are doing some crazy things, waiving inspections, putting in appraisal gap contingencies, all sorts of things. They really have to put their neck out on a line to get a house,” she said. “I haven’t seen this many cash offers in the last 18 years.”
City Administrator Kathy Schlieve also brought up the recent Department of Corrections pay bump, and how many potential employees are unable to find houses to move to the area for work.
Central Wisconsin Christian’s massive expansion project is also drawing new families into the area, with a large number of new students enrolling in the school, but due to the tight market are unable to find a home in Waupun, particularly near CWC.
Alderman Pete Kaczmarski asked Mallas what kind of solutions there could be to addressing the lack of single family homes.
“In order to target that price range we’ll have to look bigger in scope, because you can’t build anything for $150k to $200k,” Mallas said. “There’s no way we can create a $150k house, somebody has to give up that $150k house, by either going to assisted living, passing away, or selling.”
Construction has been considerably down since 2008, with between 5-8 million units short since the crash. The only thing that could improve conditions would be new construction, but no companies are willing to make the investment.
Tightening market trends aren’t exclusive to Waupun, as statewide home sales have dropped over 20% with the median sale price being over $300k. This raises the question of why it’s happening.
Several possible causes were thrown out at the meeting, including the size of houses, the size of family units, and the influx of illegal immigrants into the United States. Some houses are also left uninhabitable due to being vacant and unmaintained, of which there are a number in Waupun.
All together, the already low supply on the market, the continued dilapidation of other houses, the falling average people per household, and rising prices of rent all contribute to the strained market.
This section of the meeting was a discussion period and no action was taken that evening. The City will continue discussing the issue at future meetings and finding opportunities to expand Waupun’s housing strategy.
