Wisconsin Housing Market Analysis: The Last 16 Quarters in Data

Wisconsin home prices rose 27.7% over the 16 quarters from Q3 2022 through Q2 2026, according to the FHFA All-Transactions House Price Index, the strongest 16-quarter run of any state we track. Growth has cooled but never stopped: the latest reading shows prices up 5.6% year over year. Asking prices tell a flatter story. The median listing price reached $399,600 in Q2 2026, per Realtor.com median listing price data retrieved through FRED, up just 0.2% from a year earlier. And Realtor.com active listing counts put 12,900 homes on the Wisconsin market, 17.2% more than at the start of the window. Prices keep grinding higher while inventory rebuilds and asking prices stall. That tension is the story of this market.

How Wisconsin Home Prices Have Moved

The FHFA index for Wisconsin stood at 506.5 in Q3 2022. Sixteen quarters later it reads 646.7. That 27.7% climb did not happen in a straight line, but it came remarkably close.

The window opened at full speed. Prices in Q3 2022 were up 14.9% year over year, the fastest growth of the entire period, a leftover from the pandemic-era run. Then mortgage rates bit. The index actually slipped from 506.5 to 504.6 in Q4 2022, the only quarter-over-quarter decline in all 16 quarters, and annual growth decelerated fast: 12.0% in Q4 2022, 10.0% in Q1 2023, down to 7.8% by Q2 2023.

What happened next separates Wisconsin from most markets. Instead of continuing to fade, growth re-accelerated: 9.2% in Q4 2023 and 9.6% in Q1 2024, even with the average 30-year mortgage rate sitting at 7.3% and 6.75% in those quarters per the Freddie Mac survey. Since then the trend has been a slow, orderly downshift: 7.9% in Q2 2024, 6.2% in Q3 2024, then a band between 5.8% and 7.2% through 2025. The slowest reading of the whole window came in Q1 2026 at 4.9%, and the latest quarter ticked back up to 5.6%.

Note what is missing from that chart: a negative quarter. Wisconsin never posted a year-over-year price decline in this window. Growth cooled from 14.9% to roughly 5%, but the floor held every single quarter.

What Homes Are Listed For

Asking prices moved differently. The median listing price was $339,477 in Q3 2022 and stands at $399,600 in Q2 2026, which is also the peak for the entire window. It is unusual for the high-water mark to be the most recent quarter, and it fits the sale-price data: this market has not rolled over.

But the pace of listing-price growth has collapsed. In Q4 2022, the median asking price was rising 23.3% year over year. By Q4 2023 that was down to 4.0%. Through 2025 it ran below 2%, and in both Q1 and Q2 2026 it registered just 0.2%. The level also swings hard with the seasons: spring quarters push toward $400,000 ($392,733 in Q2 2024, $398,933 in Q2 2025), while winter quarters sag into the $350,000s and $370,000s ($355,283 in Q4 2023, $378,117 in Q4 2025). Sellers listing today are pricing into a market where the median ask is essentially flat against last year, even as closed-transaction values keep rising 5.6%.

How Many Homes Are on the Market

Inventory is the series that has genuinely changed direction. Wisconsin had 11,007 active listings in Q3 2022, and the count was shrinking fast, down 14.2% from a year before. It kept shrinking through early 2023, bottoming at 6,705 in Q1 2023. From there the rebuild started. Every quarter since Q1 2024 has posted double-digit annual inventory growth, peaking at 24.5% in Q2 2024 and still running at 20.0% in Q2 2026. The latest count, 12,900 active listings, is the highest of the entire window, and it is 17.2% above where the window began.

For a seller, inventory is leverage, plain and simple. When 6,705 homes were on the market in early 2023, a listed house had scarce competition and buyers had few alternatives. At 12,900 listings, a buyer touring homes this summer has nearly twice the selection that buyer would have had then. More selection means more homes competing on price, condition, and terms, and it shows up in that 0.2% asking-price growth. Values are still rising, but the days of naming a number and fielding offers anyway are visibly behind this market.

What Homes Are Worth in Wisconsin's Largest Cities

Statewide numbers hide a lot of variation, so here is the same window at street level. The table shows the Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), a smoothed, seasonally adjusted estimate of the typical home value in the city proper (not the wider metro area), for Wisconsin's five largest cities as of Q2 2026, with the baseline each change is measured against.

Kenosha is the strongest of the five right now, with typical values up 6.5% year over year. Madison sits at the other end at 2.1%. The quarter-by-quarter city numbers, with the same up and down markers, are in the quarterly reports listed further down this page.

Sales, Supply, and Pending Deals

Prices tell you what homes are worth; transactions tell you whether anything is actually moving. Per the Redfin market tracker (all residential, not seasonally adjusted), completed sales in Wisconsin averaged 5,792 homes a month in Q2 2026 (down 1% from the same months a year earlier), with pending sales running 7,410 a month. The median sale price, what buyers actually paid, averaged $355,000, up 6.3% year over year. At the current sales pace the market holds 2.8 months of supply, which by the common rule of thumb is seller's market territory, and the typical home that sold went under contract in 47 days. Redfin figures for Q2 2026 reflect April and May, the months reported so far; year over year comparisons use the same months a year earlier.

*Partial quarter; see the note above. All change markers compare against the year-earlier baseline shown beneath them.

The Numbers, Quarter by Quarter

What This Means If You're Selling

The equity you built since 2022 is real

A 27.7% rise in the price index over four years is not a paper gain that evaporated when the market cooled. Wisconsin never had the negative year: growth slowed, it did not reverse. If you bought before or during 2022, the value gap between what you paid and what your house is worth today is likely the largest lever in your financial life, and it outpaced every other state we cover, including the national market as a whole. That equity is what makes multiple selling routes viable, because you have room to choose speed or price rather than being forced into one.

More listings means more patience, or a different route

With 12,900 homes actively for sale and inventory growing 20.0% year over year, a listed home in Wisconsin competes harder than it did in 2023. Flat asking prices (0.2% growth) tell you sellers are already adjusting. If your house is in strong condition and you can wait out the process, the market still rewards you; values are rising 5.6% annually. If you need certainty on timing, that is exactly the situation where a direct sale earns its keep. We buy houses across the state, and you can see everywhere we operate on our Wisconsin page.

Condition still decides which buyers show up

The $399,600 median ask is set by move-in-ready homes. A house that needs a roof, a furnace, or thirty years of updates does not compete in that pool, and rising inventory makes retail buyers pickier about condition, not less. That is the gap we exist to fill. EZ Time Home Buyers makes written offers within 24 hours, closes in 2 to 3 weeks, charges no fees or commissions, and buys houses as-is, so the furnace is our problem, not yours. If your home is in good shape, ask about our Retail Buyer Program, which typically nets sellers more than a typical cash offer. Either way, you get a real number against which to weigh the open market.

Quarterly Market Reports

Every quarter in this analysis has its own report page with that quarter's index reading, listing data, mortgage rate, and city values, including the quarters where the story was very different from today's:

• 2022: Q3 · Q4
• 2023: Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4
• 2024: Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4
• 2025: Q1 · Q2 · Q3 · Q4
• 2026: Q1 · Q2

Data and Methodology

• Home price trajectory: FHFA All-Transactions House Price Index for Wisconsin (WISTHPI), retrieved from FRED.
• Asking prices: Realtor.com Housing Inventory: Median Listing Price in Wisconsin (MEDLISPRIWI), retrieved from FRED.
• Inventory: Realtor.com Housing Inventory: Active Listing Count in Wisconsin (ACTLISCOUWI), retrieved from FRED.
• Mortgage rate context: Freddie Mac 30-Year Fixed Rate Mortgage Average (MORTGAGE30US), retrieved from FRED.
• City home values: Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI), all homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted, city level, retrieved August 26, 2026.
• Sales, pending sales, months of supply, and days on market: Redfin market tracker (monthly, all residential, not seasonally adjusted); transaction counts shown as monthly averages within each quarter, retrieved August 26, 2026.
• Sales, pending sales, months of supply, and days on market: Redfin market tracker (monthly, all residential, not seasonally adjusted); transaction counts shown as monthly averages within each quarter, retrieved August 26, 2026.
• Monthly series are averaged to calendar quarters.
• Data retrieved August 26, 2026. This page reports historical data; it is not a price forecast or investment advice.