Milwaukee’s housing market is holding up better than any other major U.S. housing market, according to a new report from Seattle-based
Redfin.
The report says home sales in the Milwaukee area are up 12.2% year-over-year, and home sale prices are up 8.2%.
Redfin’s analysis ranks U.S. metropolitan areas based on year-over-year changes in the following metrics as of June 2025: homes sold, median sale price per square foot, share of homes that went under contract within two weeks, average sale-to-original-list price ratio, median days on market and inventory. Redfin analyzed the 50 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas and included in this analysis the 49 with sufficient data (Kansas City, Missouri is the metro excluded).
Milwaukee came out on top of the Redfin housing market rankings.
“Is our market white hot? No. But is it red hot? Yes,” said
W.J. Eulberg, a Redfin Premier real estate agent in Milwaukee. “Unlike much of the country, Milwaukee is not a buyer’s market. While homes no longer get 15 offers and sell for $80,000 over the asking price like they did during the pandemic, they still get snapped up quickly because we continue to face an inventory shortage.”
Eulberg said he recently had a listing in South Milwaukee that went live on a Thursday and got an offer within three hours. By Saturday, the seller had seven offers. The home ended up selling for about $50,000 over the $256,000 list price.
Milwaukee’s proximity to Chicago is a selling point for many buyers, Eulberg said. The Chicago area ranked as the second best metro area housing market in the Redfin report.
Milwaukee’s housing market inventory shortage is being driven by a variety of factors, the Redfin report says. Many homeowners are hesitant to put their houses on the market because they don’t want to lose the ultra-low mortgage rate they got during the pandemic. The Midwest (and Northeast) have also been building fewer homes than the South and West, which are now seeing home prices fall in some areas amid glut of inventory.
There’s not much room left to build in the city of Milwaukee, Eulberg said, and many of the homes that have been built in the area recently aren’t priced for the typical first-time buyer.
In addition to Milwaukee and Chicago, the other metro area housing markets “holding up best,” according to Redfin are: Philadelphia, Minneapolis, New York, Cincinnati, Detroit, Newark, Pittsburgh and Virginia Beach.
The metro area housing markets that are cooling the fastest are led by Las Vegas and also include Sacramento, Denver, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, San Diego, Miami, Seattle, Washington D.C. and Oakland, according to the Redfin report.
Redfin, part of Rocket Companies, is a technology-driven real estate company.
