Sales of homes in the Northwoods continue to climb, but prices leveled off in July according to a Wisconsin Realtors Association monthly survey.
Economist David Clark says July homes sales in the 18-county northern region were up about 300 units from 2012, or 3,314 sold. Average price was $110,000, down about 2 percent from last year.
Clark says statewide sales were up 17 percent from a year ago and the median sales prices were up about 9 percent. He says July is one of the prime home buying times in Wisconsin.
Clark says this region is tricky to analyze because there are two sets of homes: primary homes and vacation homes...
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"....and when the mix of homes shifts from one to the other, that can move those prices around. In this case it appears it stayed relatively constant. But if you look at some of the individual counties, they either swing up or down quite a bit...."
As an example, during the recession, vacation, or on-water homes kept selling while primary homes dropped off.
The average sale price in Oneida county in July was $134,000 and in Vilas it was $164,000, both about the same as last summer. Prices in Forest county were off 27 percent at $84,000. Langlade was close to last year at $65,000, Lincoln was off five percent at $80,000, Price county was up 26 percent at $86,000 and Iron was about the same as last year at $130,000.
