It took Milwaukee more than a decade to turn the corner on the mortgage foreclosure crisis. Owner-occupancy didn’t begin increasing until the late 2010s. At that time, homebuyers were to a great degree disproportionately White relative to their overall share of the city’s population. In 2018, about 39% of the adult population was White, but they accounted for 57% of homebuyers. In the years since then, homebuying has increased among Black and Latino residents, bringing the citywide breakdown of homebuyers more in line with the city’s demographics.

The spatial pattern of recent homebuying is also increasing the city’s racial diversity across most neighborhoods because many homebuyers of all races are purchasing homes in neighborhoods where they are currently a racial minority among homeowners. Black homebuyers are often buying in majority White parts of the northwest side. Latino homebuying is increasing in both White neighborhoods on the far south and southwest sides as well as Black neighborhoods on the north side. And White homebuying is actually increasing across the historically extremely segregated Black near north side.

We first reported on these trends on May 14 for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. This post shares additional maps and statistics from that research, while incorporating newly released mortgage data covering 2025.

I use Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) data provided by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for this research, so my data excludes information on the small share of homebuyers who purchase their homes outright.

Here are the stats. In 2018, 4,053 mortgages were originated for Milwaukee homebuyers, by which I mean purchasers who indicated that they would become owner-occupiers. That grew to 5,496 at the peak of the market in 2021. In 2025, 3,568 such mortgages were originated, which was a slight decline from 2024.

Table 1: Mortgages Originated for Owner-Occupiers, by Recipient Race

City of Milwaukee

	total	White	Black	Latino	Asian	Other/Joint	Not Available
2018	4,053	2,169	630	607	267	155	225
2019	4,190	2,071	759	596	287	170	307
2020	4,817	2,296	978	709	297	218	319
2021	5,496	2,405	1,222	791	351	258	469
2022	4,649	1,933	1,053	769	264	213	417
2023	3,651	1,466	821	634	208	188	334
2024	3,635	1,361	804	707	235	163	365
2025	3,568	1,409	731	678	217	169	364

In 2018, 57% of mortgages were originated for White homebuyers and 32% for Black or Latino buyers. By comparison, the city’s adult population is about 39% White and 53% Black or Latino. The 2025 buyer numbers, while still not representative, come much closer to matching the city’s demographics. Last year, White buyers received 44% of mortgages vs. another 44% for Black or Latino buyers. This was a small decline in representativeness relative to 2024. In that year, 42% of homebuyers were White and 47% Black or Latino.

Relative to the adult population share in the last census, White homebuyers in 2025 were overrepresented by 5 points, Latino buyers by 3 points, and Asian buyers by 2 points. Black buyers were underrepresented by 12 points. This is still a quite bad result, but it’s a big improvement over 2018 when they were underrepresented by 19 points.

Table 2: Mortgages Issued to Owner-Occupiers, Share by Race

City of Milwaukee, among applicants for whom race is known

	White	Black	Latino	Asian	Other/Joint
2018	57%	16%	16%	7%	4%
2019	53%	20%	15%	7%	4%
2020	51%	22%	16%	7%	5%
2021	48%	24%	16%	7%	5%
2022	46%	25%	18%	6%	5%
2023	44%	25%	19%	6%	6%
2024	42%	25%	22%	7%	5%
2025	44%	23%	21%	7%	5%
Pop. Share1	39%	35%	18%	5%	4%
1Citywide share of the adult population in the 2020 census

Throughout this article, all mortgage percentages are calculated as a share of mortgages where the applicant’s race is known. The share of HMDA records lacking applicant race has grown over time, apparently as a result of some online mortgage providers failing to collect this information. At the tract level in Milwaukee, missing race data is not meaningfully correlated with the Black, White, or Latino population share.

Geography of homebuying

Besides counting the entire population for redistricting purposes, the 2020 census also recorded the ownership or renter status of each household. This data is published at the tract level. I assigned each tract to a Milwaukee aldermanic district and added up the owner-occupiers of each race. Then, I did the same exercise for homebuying mortgage recipients in the following years. Comparing the race of homebuyers in 2020-2025 with the race of existing homeowners in the 2020 census reveals how recent homebuying differs from (or matches) the status quo in each aldermanic district.

Complete statistics are available in the table at the end of this post, but here are a few highlights. Broadly speaking, Black and Latino homebuying has increased on the city’s fringes, where White homebuying has declined. Latino homebuying has also increased across every part of the north side, often by double-digits. White homebuying has declined, as a share of the total, almost everywhere except the near north side.

Black homebuying: growing on the periphery, shrinking in the center

The Black share of homebuyers grew at least a little in 9 districts, most notably in the 5th, on the city’s northwest fringe. Here, 22% of homeowners in 2020 were Black, growing to 28% among recent homebuyers. The 5th district saw more homebuyers during the early 2020s than any other district.

Black purchasing actually declined in some of the districts with the largest Black population share. In the 1st, 73% of homeowners in 2020 were Black, falling to 63% of recent buyers. The adjacent 7th district saw an almost identical pattern, 76% to 65%. In the 15th, Black residents were 71% of homeowners in 2020 vs. 56% of recent buyers.

The biggest change was in the 6th district, which includes parts of Riverwest, Brewers Hill, and Harambee. In the 2020 census, 55% of homeowners were Black but only 23% of buyers have been since.

Latino homebuying: growing almost everywhere

Homebuying by Latinos has grown a great deal in both historically majority Black and White neighborhoods. In the 11th and 13th districts on the far south and southwest sides, the Latino share of recent buyers grew by more than 10 points over their share in the 2020 census.

In the 15th district, on the near north side, Latinos were 6% of homeowners in 2020, growing to 17% among more recent homebuyers. The Latino share of homebuyers increased by 5-10 points across the rest of the north side.

White homebuying: declining on the periphery, growing on the near north side

In the 11th and 13th districts, the White share of recent homebuyers was 25 points lower than in the 2020 census. In the 5th, White residents comprised 67% of homeowners in 2020 but 52% of recent buyers. Likewise, in the 9th, they were 38% of homeowners in 2020 vs. 22% of buyers since then.

Contrast that to the districts on the near north side. In the 6th district, 33% of homeowners in 2020 were White, but that grew to 61% among more recent buyers. In the 15th district, located further west, only 12% of homeowners were White in 2020, growing to 20% of recent buyers.

What do these patterns mean?

Even in this tight housing market, people across Milwaukee are choosing to buy houses here, in neighborhoods spanning the diversity of the city.

That growth is being driven by homebuying activity among Black and Latino Milwaukeeans. In fact, the specific patterns of where people are buying are increasing the racial diversity of the city. This change isn’t huge, but it is real and widespread. Seventy-eight percent of the city’s roughly 200 census tracts saw more diversity among recent homebuyers than they did among homeowners in 2020. To put a specific number on it, in the average tract, the odds of two homebuyers who purchased from 2020 to 2026 being of different races was 9 percentage points higher than among the existing homeowners in 2020.

As we wrote in May, “These patterns of movement could be interpreted in different ways. To some, the demographic changes among homebuyers on the city’s periphery might be evidence of ongoing ‘White flight’ to the suburbs. To others, the nascent movement of White homebuyers into the near north side could be a sign of gentrification. Still others might view these changes as part of the natural ebb and flow of any diverse urban population.

“All of these explanations require various assumptions about the motivations and incentives of individual homebuyers. What we can say empirically is this: Homebuying in the early 2020s increased neighborhood diversity and reduced residential segregation in most of Milwaukee.”

Addendum: Complete Aldermanic Statistics

Table 3: Milwaukee Aldermanic Districts: Mortgage Activity vs. Owner-Occupancy

Home purchase mortgages 2020–2024 compared to 2020 Census owner-occupier race shares

	Owner-Occupiers (2020 Census)				Mortgages (2020–2024)		Mortgage Share (%)1			Diff. from OO Share (pp)2
District3	Total	White	Black	Hispanic	All mortgages	Race available4	White	Black	Hispanic	White	Black	Hispanic
1st	5,656	18	73	4	1,416	1,303	16	63	13	-2	-10	10
2nd	5,798	25	59	4	1,704	1,546	14	59	14	-11	0	10
3rd	4,528	87	3	4	1,482	1,345	83	3	5	-4	0	0
4th	2,563	81	7	4	982	902	79	6	5	-1	0	1
5th	8,951	67	22	4	3,242	2,974	52	28	8	-15	6	5
6th	4,010	33	55	7	1,076	969	61	23	8	28	-31	1
7th	6,343	15	76	3	1,543	1,393	16	65	12	1	-11	9
8th	5,661	38	2	55	1,210	1,125	27	4	60	-11	2	5
9th	7,048	38	45	4	2,009	1,824	22	47	10	-17	2	6
10th	7,465	75	13	7	2,218	2,045	65	13	13	-10	0	6
11th	9,445	78	1	14	2,751	2,523	54	4	28	-25	3	13
12th	3,205	23	2	70	571	514	22	4	67	-1	2	-4
13th	9,241	70	1	21	2,357	2,138	45	3	32	-25	2	11
14th	9,067	80	1	15	2,483	2,239	74	1	15	-6	0	0
15th	4,001	12	71	6	772	708	20	56	17	8	-16	11
1Calculated as a share of mortgages where race of applicant was reported.
2Percentage point difference between mortgage share and 2020 owner-occupier share. Positive (green) = over-represented in mortgages; negative (red) = under-represented.
3Data is aggregated from census tracts corresponding to, but not exactly matching, district boundaries.
4Only mortgages where race of applicant was reported.
Sources: HMDA (2020–2024); U.S. Census Bureau (2020 Decennial Census)

Tracing the Astonishing Rise of Milwaukee’s Largest Landlord

In commercial mortgage-backed securities issued by three banks throughout late 2024 and 2025, Youssef “Joe” Berrada—by far, Milwaukee’s largest landlord—is reported as having an “approximate” net worth of $1.027 billion and liquidity of $94 million.[i] This is an increase of $72 million from his reported net worth of $955 million shown in prospectuses filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier in 2024.[ii]

The loans were issued to LLCs controlled by Berrada Properties, but Youssef Berrada sponsored and guaranteed them in his own name. This is why the securities filings include his financial disclosures. In a normal mortgage (personal or commercial), the value of the property provides sufficient collateral for the loan. However, the filings explain that “the Mortgagor’s operations do not comply, with all of the separateness covenants required for it to be a Single-Purpose Entity.” The “mortgagor” in that sentence refers to the LLC taking on the loan. In plain English: the operations of Berrada’s various LLCs are connected in a way that might cause a judge to collapse them into a single entity in the event of a bankruptcy. In that sense, investing in this mortgage could expose the investor to risks from other parts of the Berrada business besides this one property. So Youssef Berrada personally commits “to be liable on a recourse basis” should this occur.

The loan documents provide Berrada’s net worth and liquidity as evidence or reassurance of his ability to make good on this commitment. Guarantor financial statistics are usually self-reported by the borrower and are not necessarily subject to Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), meaning guarantors have considerable flexibility in how they calculate their own net worth. They might take a more optimistic view when valuing their assets than an auditor would. Still, it is unlawful to misrepresent one’s finances in a securities filing, and there is no reason to believe that Berrada has done so. Rather, what we can say is that, by Berrada’s own apparent estimation, he is a billionaire.

Which brings me to a question: Where is his money from? With only publicly available data, it’s impossible to say if it’s all from his rental business, other investments, or perhaps even family wealth. Nonetheless, Berrada’s property empire has grown prodigiously since he bought his first rental property 30 years ago, with most of the growth coming in just the past decade. My interest here is to try to sketch out the story.

From 8 Units to Ten Thousand

Berrada bought his first apartment building in Milwaukee in the spring of 1996 for $187,000. It’s an 8-unit building on Hampton and 79th. He owns it today (although he sold it in 2008 before buying it back in 2013). Since this initial purchase, the holdings of Berrada and LLCs affiliated with him have grown at an extraordinary clip. As of the end of 2025, I count over 880 apartment buildings holding a total of 10,223 housing units in the Berrada network.[iii]

Most of these properties are in the City of Milwaukee, where Berrada-affiliated companies own 9,720 units. I count 32 apartments across three properties in West Allis and 40 apartments in two St. Francis properties. Berrada also has a considerable presence in Racine, with 441 units in 33 parcels.

When I refer to the “Berrada network,” “Berrada-affiliated companies,” or the like, I mean both properties owned by Berrada in his personal capacity and those owned by LLCs connected to him. Unlike large corporate landlords such as VineBrook Homes or Greystar, Berrada Properties does not sell shares to investors, in either public or private markets. According to a filing from 2024, Berrada Properties was founded by Youssef Berrada and remains “family owned and operated.”^[iv] See “Note on Defining the Berrada Network” at the end of this post for more details.

At times, Berrada’s growth has seemed almost exponential. He entered the 2000s with 89 units and ended the decade with 753 owned by him and affiliated companies. At the end of 2019, the Berrada network was roughly the same size as Milwaukee’s public housing authority (HACM), with about 4,200 units in Milwaukee and another 130 in Racine. Already the largest private landlord in the city, the Berrada network more than doubled in size from just 2019 to 2023. Parcel records show that the network acquired nearly 1,000 more units in 2024 and 2025.

Here is some context for just how unusual it is for a landlord to achieve a portfolio of this size, let alone an individual landlord, as opposed to a large corporation. According to this trade organization list, the largest landlord in the country in 2025 was Greystar, with 122,545 housing units owned. The 50th largest landlord on the list was JRK Property Holdings, which owned 25,796 units across operations in 23 states. Berrada’s portfolio of 10,223 units within Milwaukee and Racine counties, in other words, is 40% as large as the 50th largest corporate landlord in the entire country.

Where Berrada is concentrated

Citywide, Berrada-affiliated companies own 6.4% of all rental housing units. Milwaukee contains many rented single-family homes and duplexes, but Berrada specializes in apartment buildings. Among apartment buildings with at least 4 rental units, Berrada owns 10.9% of the housing stock.

The citywide figures obscure the true degree of the Berrada market dominance, because the holdings are concentrated in specific parts of the city, particularly on the far north and (increasingly) near west sides.

The northernmost fifth of the city is where Berrada’s heaviest concentration lies. In the 2nd Aldermanic District, Berrada companies own 24% of all rental units and 44% of rental units in an apartment building. In the neighboring 1st District, the companies own 16% of all units and 32% of apartment units. In the 9th District, Berrada-affiliated companies own 18% of all units and a quarter of apartments.

Berrada companies also own a double-digit share of apartments in the 5th district (16%), the 7th district (21%), and the 10th district (18%).

A particularly large number of Berrada properties are in the 4th District (1,815), but they are concentrated in the western portion of that district, rather than its also apartment-heavy downtown portion.

Only two districts, the 3rd and 13th, hold no Berrada properties.

Berrada’s concentration of property ownership can feel even greater on a block-by-block level. Wells Street in the Concordia neighborhood between 27th and 35th streets is a striking example. That street is a mixture of grand old houses, some now B&Bs, interspersed between mid-size apartment buildings. Berrada made his first purchases here in 2015. Since then, he has acquired more buildings with alacrity. By the end of 2025, his companies owned 17 properties containing 459 apartments just along this 8-block stretch of Wells St.

These acquisitions were part of a broader buying spree across the near west side. Until 2015, Berrada owned no properties at all in this part of the city, which includes the 7 neighborhoods of Avenues West, Cold Spring Park, Concordia, Martin Drive, Merrill Park, Miller Valley, and Piggsville. Berrada-affiliated companies acquired 200 units in 2015 and owned 788 at the end of 2019. By the end of 2025, Berrada’s network owned 74 apartment buildings and 2,265 units on the near west side, equal to 28% of the area’s apartments.

The interactive map below shows the properties owned by Berrada-affiliated companies at the end of 2025. Click to open it in a new tab.

At this scale, the accumulation of wealth is enormous. The 2025 assessed value of all these properties together was around $625 million, but this substantially understates their market value.

I matched 26 individual mortgages obtained by Berrada companies with City of Milwaukee parcel records. Each mortgage covered between 67-168 apartments, and altogether the 24 mortgages refinanced 2,629 units (over a quarter of Berrada’s total). The data come from prospectuses filed in 2024 and 2025. The city assessed the value of these properties as $160.3 million in 2025. However, the appraisals for these properties shown to investors totaled $471.4 million. In other words, these properties were assessed by the city at just 34% of the value at which they were appraised by the market. Some of the appraisals came after the assessment window ended, but some did not. Applying this ratio of assessed-to-appraised value to the rest of Berrada’s properties would suggest a total value in excess of $1.7 billion.

That is the asset side of the business. On the revenue side, the same prospectuses also report the most recent annual effective gross income (EGI) for the properties in each mortgage. Across all 26 mortgages, the average monthly EGI per unit was $1,222. Applying this number to all of Berrada’s properties suggests a gross annual revenue of around $149 million.

What does it mean for Milwaukee (and, to a lesser extent, Racine) for so much property to be concentrated in a single landlord? In the northernmost fifth of Milwaukee, the odds are better than 1-in-4 that Berrada owns any given apartment one might look at.

The decisions Berrada Properties makes about how much rent to charge and how well to maintain its properties shapes the lives of perhaps 20,000 people or more (based on the average sizes of renting households).

Note on Defining the Berrada Network

The Berrada network includes many different LLCs, as well as properties whose owner is listed as Joe Berrada personally. Legally speaking, the LLCs are the owner of each property, while the beneficial owner of the LLC is unknown. But as a practical matter, a connection to Berrada is clear because these LLCs list one of Berrada’s addresses in their corporate registration paperwork or parcel tax records.

To be clear, Berrada isn’t trying to hide the connection. Regardless of the legal owner name, the apartment buildings often have prominent signs reading BERRADAPROPERTIES.com, and many of the LLCs have names like BERRADA PROPERTIES 74, LLC, and BERRADA PROPERTIES 117, LLC. Others have names referring to the apartment complex or a region of the city while using Berrada-linked addresses. For instance, MEAUX PARK, LLC owns 42 parcels on Long Island Drive, directly north of the titular park. Per state filings, the LLC’s principal office is Berrada’s complex at 10136 W FOND DU LAC AVE, and all of the individual properties receive their property tax bills at a Berrada-linked PO Box. A handful of LLCs present close questions, where the connection to Berrada is not entirely clear. In these instances, I have usually erred on the side of removing the properties from my understanding of the network. For these reasons, plus the occasional fallibility of tax rolls, my calculations are my best estimate of the size of Berrada’s network in any given year and may contain some small errors.

To create this analysis of Berrada’s rise, I used the Milwaukee Assessor’s archive of annual property database snapshots, which show the ownership of every property in the city at the end of each calendar year. For properties owned outside of Milwaukee, I used annual vintages of the statewide parcel file. For each year, I identified the addresses used by Berrada and the companies using those addresses. I then manually removed a handful of owners that appeared to be included erroneously, perhaps due to an incorrect parcel record. The final dataset includes more than 250 distinct names, which partly reflects the large number of LLCs Berrada uses and partly the idiosyncratic ways those LLC names are spelled when entered into the parcel database.

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[i] Specifically, the documents report “an approximate net worth and liquidity of $1,026,844,321 and $94,434,037, respectively.” A recent example of this language is from WFCM 2025-C65. Youssef Berrada is listed as the guarantor of Loan 18 at A-1-25. Footnote 33 at D-2-33 contains the language about the guarantor’s net worth and liquidity. See also similar statements in BBCMS 2025-C35, BMO 2025-C12, BMO 2025-C11, WFCM 2025-C64, BBCMS 2024-C30, WFCM 2024-C63, and BBCMS 2024-C28.

[ii] See BMO 2024-C9, BBCMS 2024-C26, & BBCMS 2024-C24, which report “an approximate net worth and liquidity of $954,765,140.00 and $95,950,900.00, respectively.”

[iii] These statistics are based on parcel records maintained by municipal assessors. I collected Milwaukee statistics from the city’s Master Property File. For other municipalities, I used the 2025 statewide parcel file, which aggregated files from each county in the first half of 2025. Consequently, the statistics from other municipalities may be missing some transactions from later in the year.

[iv] BBCMS 2024-C24, A-3-109.