Here & Now

Wisconsin's Roller Coaster Housing Market for Millennials

Frederica Freyberg:

The committee heard from experts and citizens about programs that help breathe new life into Milwaukee’s housing stock and help would-be buyers. For many people wanting to purchase, low interest rates set off a home-buying craze, and low supply sent house prices soaring. This hits hard for millennials in the peak home-buying age who have to make tough choices their parents never did. Marisa Wojcik met with a couple of them.

Amy Sampson:

Each week we put an offer on a house. With the market the way it is, all those offers were between like 15,000 and 50,000 over the list price, and just like saying that out loud is scary.

Rebecca LeBeau:

It’s really hard to keep your spirits up doing that every week.

Marisa Wojcik:

Rebecca LeBeau and Amy Sampson describe the realty reality that many first-time home buyers are going through right now, particularly millennials.

Rebecca LeBeau:

We were just ready to put our roots down here. We figured we would struggle. I don’t think we were expecting quite the struggle that it has been.

Marisa Wojcik:

For six straight weeks, the couple made offer after offer.

Rebecca LeBeau:

We bid 40 over on one house and it ended up going for 75 over. And that was, I think, one of the lower points so far.

Lindsey Cooper:

It’s hard when there’s not a hard logic to do it the way we’re doing it. It’s just this is the game you have to play to get in the house.

Marisa Wojcik:

As their realtor, Lindsey Cooper guided them through the difficult process of finding their home.

Lindsey Cooper:

There’s a lot of cases where people can’t afford to be their own neighbor. It’s just getting tighter and tighter.

Marisa Wojcik:

A disorienting and emotional roller coaster and in the current housing market, unavoidable.

Lindsey Cooper:

I was already in January writing offers that were 10 to 20% above asking. With limited contingencies and lots of forgiveness. It was — it was just what needed to be done. If you talk to the list agent and you know they have 15 other offers and you know they’re strong, you just don’t have any other option but to be as competitive as you can be.

Marisa Wojcik:

A perfect storm of factors led to this point of high demand and low supply.

Lindsey Cooper:

When the pandemic started heating up, the market essentially just got tight. You know, people didn’t want to leave their home. They were scared about their health and safety. Construction kind of came apart at the seams because supply was really tricky. Prices were skyrocketing. It’s gut-wrenching to know that it’s all about how much cash you have on hand.

Marisa Wojcik:

Her clients were determined and perhaps more importantly, patient. Finally, they got an accepted offer.

Amy Sampson:

That week was spring break, and it seemed like everybody was waiting to post their houses on spring break week, so there ended up being a lot of supply that week.

Rebecca LeBeau:

It’s a two-bedroom house on the east side. It’s not the biggest house but it’s like a great starter house for us to grow into.

Marisa Wojcik:

But even their happy ending came with its own contingencies.

Rebecca LeBeau:

We’re making decisions that our parents never had to make about, like, okay, if buying a house is important to us, then we’re maybe not going to have kids or we’re going to have one kid instead of two kids. And I see articles about, like, millennials not having kids and it’s like, yeah, we can’t — we can’t afford houses. Daycare is the same as a mortgage, like, how are we going to do that? There’s just no way to do that. And so we’re having those conversations, like, okay, maybe kids aren’t for us if we can’t afford them.

Amy Sampson:

Just build our cats a really nice cat-io.

Marisa Wojcik:

For “Here & Now,” I’m Marisa Wojcik in Madison.