Back Home2021 Dane County Home Sales Statistics
January 12th, 2022 by keithandkinsey
2021 was another crazy year for real estate! We’ve seen bidding wars among buyers for the last several years, but this was the most competitive year we’ve seen. We had one buyer we wrote 13 offers for (all above asking price) before they got a house and another who got rejected at 130k over asking price! The median home price in Dane County was up 10.9% over 2020. 97% of our listings got asking price or better and Dane county’s average sale price of single family homes was 101.16% of the listing price!
Every one is talking about the lack of inventory. While it’s true inventory is tight, it’s because there’s more demand than supply currently. The number of homes sold were basically even when the total sales last year, which was a record year for sales volume. In other words, it’s not like people aren’t selling; there’s a record number of houses changing hands.
On a more local level, the areas with the biggest increase in home sales were Fitchburg with a 28.4% increase, Waunakee at 24.6%, and Cottage Grove increasing 21.5% year over year. The biggest reduction in sales volume were some of the more expensive markets – Maple Bluff at -31.4% and Shorewood Hills with a 28.6% decline in sales compared to 2020.
Prices were strong all across Wisconsin with a huge 9.5% increase in median prices statewide, and an 11.7% increase in Madison. The combination of great interest rates, demand, and inflation have been what’s driving prices up. The front runners locally were Shorewood Hills, with a 38.2% increase in median price, followed by Cross Plains with a 32.3% increase in median price. The Shorewood Hills numbers are likely due to a smaller sampling of sales skewing the numbers a bit and the decrease in available homes causing a high demand for what was available. The big increase in Cross Plains is interesting though since there were actually more homes sold there in 2021 than 2020. One factor here is new development, like Scenic Valley bringing new construction and higher end homes to the village. Additionally, Cross Plains is the most affordable place in the high demand Middleton – Cross Plains school district, which is increasing housing demand for the area.
Some of the more affordable communities with the lowest prices around Dane County were Belleville, Monona, Madison (mostly the outer parts of the city), and Mount Horeb. These might be some of the best bargain places to buy in the next year or two as first time buyers struggle to afford many of the other communities.
Our projection is that 2022 will continue to see continued competition amongst buyers – especially in lower price ranges – but that rising interest rates will likely help calm things down (a little) towards the end of the year. If you are a seller, 2022 is looking like like it will be in your favor! If you are a buyer, expect continued competition. However, with low interest rates, affordability continues to be reasonable, so I wouldn’t let the competition prevent you from buying. We expect to see continued price growth over the next several years, but likely not the double digit price increases we’ve seen the last couple years. I think 2022 will be better than average, but by 2023 we will likely return to a more typical 4-5% increase in values.
