The Lubar Center’s latest research project takes a careful look at how housing affordability has changed in the Milwaukee metro in the early 2020s.

Our article, “Can a typical worker still buy a house in the Milwaukee metro? Increasingly, no,” was published in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on October 9, 2024. Journal Sentinel business reporter Genevieve Redsten also contributed an article to the series, “Homeownership is less attainable in the Milwaukee area. Why new construction hasn’t been part of the solution.“

Our research uncovered much more than could fit in a single story. We have shared additional resources in this web report. It includes more methodological details about our calculations and statistics for individual municipalities in the four-county Milwaukee area.

Previously, we’ve written about how the subprime mortgage crisis and the end of the residency requirement contributed to plummeting owner-occupancy rates in the City of Milwaukee. Home values fell to very low levels in Milwaukee, while rents remained relatively elevated. Consequently, home-ownership was far more cost effective than renting for many families. Meanwhile, rents–particularly in poor neighborhoods–were quite profitable. This profitable potential eventually brought Milwaukee (and similar rust belt cities) to the attention of private equity-backed corporate landlords in the late 2010s and early 2020s.

Those same years saw owner occupancy finally begin to recover in Milwaukee. Owner-occupancy grew slightly in 2019, the first year-over-year increase since 2005. These circumstances combined to foster fierce competition between would-be homeowners and out-of-state investors, particularly in majority Black neighborhoods on the city’s north side.

Since 2022, the market has cooled off. Home prices are still sky high, and increased interest rates have driven the monthly cost required to buy a house even higher. But high interest rates have also changes the calculus of corporate investors. All three of the large private equity backed firms operating in Milwaukee’s rental market have stopped buying and started selling in the past two years. For the first time since the subprime mortgage crisis began, the net number of homes owned by an out-of-state landlord actually declined in the City of Milwaukee during 2023, and that slight decline continued into the beginning of 2024 as well.

Net levels of owner-occupancy continued to grow in 2023 and 2024, albeit at a much slower pace than the preceding several years. It’s no wonder why the market has cooled. Owner-occupancy is far less attainable for many workers, as our latest article discusses in detail. Also, the cost-benefit analysis of owning a home versus renting has shifted. In 2020, we calculated that a typical single family home was cheaper to own than rent, even when factoring in the same kinds of maintenance cost assumptions used by professional property managers. That is no longer true in 2024.

Here is an even simpler comparison. This graph shows the average monthly rent in Milwaukee in blue and the monthly payment needed to buy the average house in red. Before 2018, the PITI (principal, interest, taxes, and insurance) needed to buy the average Milwaukee house was cheaper than the monthly rent for the average apartment (of any size). The two costs were about tied from 2018 through 2020. Since then, the relative cost of owning has skyrocketed, while rents have grown more modestly. “From 2019 to 2024, the monthly costs needed to buy an average home in the city of Milwaukee grew by $854 or an increase of 83%. The average monthly rent grew by $316, or 31%.”

These comparisons of monthly cost ignore the equity accrued by homeowners. This equity is substantial for homeowners who bought during the 2010s, and those owners also benefit from the low interest rates they either initially received or refinanced into. While increased home values exclude a growing number of workers from the home-buying market, they are a windfall for incumbent owners. We estimate that someone who bought the average house in Milwaukee in 2019, paying 5% down, has accrued an average of $78,000 in equity.

Milwaukee remains more affordable than the great majority of major American cities, but home-buying has become far more difficult, even impossible, for many workers. And the financial benefit to buying a house instead of renting one is no longer as straightforward as during the late 2010s.

Many things affect a school (or district’s) enrollment, but the most important is simply how many children live there.

In Milwaukee, recent birth trends point to a future of dwindling class sizes, beginning in elementary school and working their way up through the higher grades. Absent a spike in the birth rate or a big change in migration, the three sectors—district, charter, and private—will find themselves fighting over a shrinking pie.

Across the 1990s, the number of babies born fell by 13%. Then, the trend stabilized, even growing slightly, until the Great Recession. 773 fewer babies were born in 2010 than 2009, and annual declines continued after that. From 2009 to 2019, the number of births fell by 17%.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused a drop in births similar to the Great Recession a decade prior. Births fell by 540 in 2020, 439 in 2021, and 358 in 2022. Losses stabilized in 2023, when the preliminary count shows 7,905 births, still 14% lower than prior to the pandemic.

During the 2010s, schools across all sectors reaped the benefits of Milwaukee’s stable birthrate during the 2000s. Many of the twelfth-graders who graduated this year were born in 2006. Since then, the annual number of births has dropped by 31%.

In the next graph, I compare the number of first graders entering any school in Milwaukee (district, charter, or private) with the number of babies born six years prior. Subsequent first grade enrollment is lower than births because more young families move out of Milwaukee than move into it. However, the size of the gap has remained fairly steady across the 19 school years for which I have data.

In every school year, the number of first graders enrolling has been 21% to 15% lower than the number of babies born 6 years ago. In other words, first grade enrollment has always been between 79% and 85% of the total births 6 years prior. In 2023-24, the figure was 83%, and in 2022-23, 81%.

Because of this stable relationship between births and subsequent first grade enrollment, we can use recent births to forecast the size of future first grade classes.

In the 2023-24 school year, 7,956 kids enrolled in first grade at any school within city limits. Six years prior, about 9,568 kids were born in the city. The children who will enroll in first grade in 2029-30 have already been born. In Milwaukee, they number 7,902.

If Milwaukee retains young families at the best rate from our recent past, it would still mean a decline of 16% in the number of first graders over the next 6 years. Retaining families at the worst rate would result in a 22% reduction. The simple linear model I use in the above graph predicts a 19% drop.

Again, these predictions are not based on a forecast of future birth rates; they are based on the number of babies who have already been born. Some combination of retaining more young families and attracting more migrants (domestic and international) could alter this trajectory. But the current path clearly points to a drop of nearly 20% in the number of first graders by the end of the decade. That decline will then work its way through elementary, middle, and high schools over the 2030s.

Only a few of the major races on Milwaukee’s spring ballot were competitive. Most notably, the latest Milwaukee Public School District funding referendum passed by fewer than 2,000 votes. Both Biden and Trump put up relatively weak showings in their respective pro forma presidential preference votes. Evan Goyke handily won a landslide victory against the incumbent Milwaukee City Attorney.

The following discussion is based on complete, but unofficial, election night vote totals. All demographic data is from the 2020 census. Registered voter statistics are based on the number of registrants entering election day; they do not include same-day registrants.

MPS Referendum

The referendum received about 41,600 “yes” votes to 39,900 “no” votes. The No’s actually won more wards—172 to 164.

As the map below shows, support for the referendum was strongest in neighborhoods along the lake and on the near west side. Opposition was strongest on the far south and southwest sides. Most north and northwest side wards also voted against the referendum.

These patterns do somewhat follow Milwaukee’s racial divisions. The “Yes” vote won majority non-Hispanic white wards (53.2% for “Yes”) while narrowly losing both majority Black wards (48.4% “Yes”) and majority Latino wards (49.4% “Yes”).

But these differences are small. The presence of children in a ward correlates much more strongly with the referendum vote.

In wards where fewer than 20% of households include a child under 18, the “Yes” vote won by nearly two-thirds of the vote, 65.8%. But in places where more households have kids, it lost. In wards where 20% to 40% of households have a kid, 45.9% of voters supported the referendum. Where 40% to 60% of households have a kid, the “Yes” vote took 46.9%.

These are just correlations. We don’t have data on how parents themselves voted. But we can say that the MPS referendum was most popular in the parts of the city with the fewest children.

Presidential Preference

No candidate remained campaigning against Biden or Trump in their Wisconsin presidential primaries. Still, both candidates put up relatively weak showings.

Across the entire county, Trump received 73.2% from Republican primary voters. Nikki Haley’s defunct campaign still got 16.6%. In 2020 (with no other named candidates on the ballot), Trump won 97% support among Republican primary voters.

Biden received 84.5% of the vote, compared with 12.2% for uninstructed delegates, and 2.5% for Dean Phillips. The last primary featuring an incumbent Democratic president was 2012. In that year, Obama won 99.1% of the Milwaukee County vote, and uninstructed delegates received 0.7%.

The table below shows the primary results in each municipality.

A slim majority of voters participated in the Republican primary in Hales Corners and Franklin. Democrats were in the majority everywhere else.

Among Republican primary voters, Trump generally did best in the southern suburbs, garnering 80% or better in West Milwaukee, Oak Creek, Cudahy, and Hales Corners. Haley did best in the wealthier north shore suburbs, receiving 30% or better among GOP voters in Shorewood, Fox Point, Whitefish Bay, and River Hills.

Activists opposing Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza campaigned in support of the “uninstructed delegation” option in the Democratic primary. “Uninstructed” support varied between municipalities with the most support coming in two usually quite different places. Shorewood is the most Democratic municipality in the entire county, and 15% of its Democratic primary participants supported the uninstructed campaign. But “Uninstructed” support was even higher, 16%, in Franklin, one of the county’s most conservative suburbs. In general, uninstructed support was higher in the southern suburbs and lower on the north shore.

Within the city of Milwaukee, the uninstructed campaign generally performed best in the Riverwest neighborhood, with pockets of significant support scattered elsewhere in the city.

Milwaukee City Attorney

Evan Goyke won 63.3% of the vote, defeating Tearman Spencer in the race for City Attorney. He performed particularly well in the Washington Heights neighborhood and the neighborhoods along the lake. Spencer’s support was mainly limited to parts of the north side of the city.

Goyke carried 211 wards (to Spencer’s 124) and 10 of the city’s 15 aldermanic districts. Goyke won more than three quarters of the vote in the 3^rd, 14^th, 10^th, and 4^th districts.

Spencer’s best district was the 1^st, where he won two-thirds of the vote, followed by the 2^nd, where he won 63%.

Overall Turnout

Interpreting turnout is always challenging, because factors like the mix of elections on a ballot and the competitiveness of those races always vary from one election year to another. Turnout in April 2024 appears to have been middling, compared to recent past cycles.

• In 2020, about 210,000 voters, or 41% of registered voters, cast a ballot.
• April 2022 saw about 145,000 voters, or 29% of registered voters.
• This year, 165,000 voters participated, about 34% of those registered.

As a share of registered voters, turnout was highest on the north shore. The top-5 municipalities were Glendale, Greendale, Shorewood, Fox Point, and Bayside, among which turnout ranged from 42.1% to 45.4% of registered voters.

The lowest turnout came in West Milwaukee (22.6%), Cudahy (30.7%), West Allis (31.4%), and Milwaukee (31.6%).