Invest in your sale.

By investing in your sale, we mean:

• Investing your time to study your market and select the right price. 
• Investing your resources into professional staging and smart cosmetic updates. 
• Investing your creativity into beautiful visual media, online media, and printed materials, too.
• And investing your expertise into an effective negotiation strategy.

Or you can hire a professional who will make all of these investments for you.

At Mad City Dream Homes, we help you sell your home for top dollar while making your experience as stress-free and as worry-free as possible. So we encourage you to call on us whenever you're in need of some guidance and support. We're here to serve as a resource for you and help

Don't confine your search to the springtime.

Instead, act as if your search is a 12-months-out-of-the-year endeavor. Because in a market like ours, you just never know when your dream home will become available. It could be in the heart of the spring selling season, during the cooler fall season, or in the quiet of winter. There's no telling when the perfect opportunity will present itself, and you want to be prepared to act as soon as your dream home hits the market.

Do you have questions about buying or selling a home in the Madison area? Please reach out to us whenever you're in need of a real estate conversation. We're here to be a resource for you and help you plan for your future.

Your friends at Mad City Dream Homes

Right now new Dane County listings are entering the market at a very slow pace.

Take single family homes, for example

Only 235 new listings were posted to the MLS in November, which was down 32% from a year ago, and was the lowest total for any month of November on record (our data goes back to 1999).

And Dane County condos

Only 74 new condominium listings were posted to the MLS in November, which was a decrease of 28% from a year ago, and the second-lowest total on record for the month.

Why are listings trending lower?

One huge reason is our recent history with mortgage rates:

From 2012 to 2021, homeowners and investors acquired real estate under very favorable terms, and refinanced at even better terms when mortgage rates

Can you guess how many more people will be living in Dane County by the year 2050? 

A) 50,000?

B) 100,000?

C) 150,000?

D) 200,000?

If you answered "D", then your answer lines up with the projections of the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission. According to a recent study by the commission, our local population is projected to grow by more than 200,000 people between now and 2050. 

Dane County is already the fastest-growing region in the state, and our region's rapid rate of growth is just one of the reasons why we're predicting Madison area home and condo prices will remain strong in 2023 and beyond. Dane County will continue to be a great place to build wealth through real estate -- for those who have the means and make the

It's that time of year for our annual real estate predictions. Here are 7 key reasons why we see low inventory and strong prices for Madison and Dane County in 2023. 

On the demand side

Population growth

Dane county is already the fastest-growing region in the state, and according to the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission that trend will continue. The Commission projects our population will grow by more than 200,000 residents over the next 30 years. 

National reputation

For the second straight year, the city of Madison has been named by Livability as the #1 place to live in America. It's rankings like these that have put Madison on the map. And in a mobile culture like ours, where people can choose to live and work from just

Lately we've been hearing from more people in the Madison area who are hoping to buy a foreclosure as an "instant equity", "fix and flip", or a long-term "buy and hold" investment. But the reality is that there just aren't that many foreclosures out there, which the numbers from the Wisconsin Circuit Court database make abundantly clear: 

Will foreclosures rise from here?

We don't expect a significant rise in foreclosures anytime soon, and for three key reasons:

• Lending practices have improved significantly from the practices that preceded our nation's foreclosure crisis 15 years ago, so there just aren't that many bad loans out there. 
• Most homeowners right now are locked into a low interest rate and a low monthly mortgage payment. 

The Mortgage Bankers Association conducts a weekly survey designed to capture the demand for mortgages across the country. And according to the latest survey released on November 23rd, mortgage applications (for purchase loans, excluding "refis") decreased 41% compared to the same week in 2021. Note from the chart below, mortgage demand slipped considerably in the months of September and October.

How does this trend impact the Madison area real estate market? 

Well, up until just a few weeks ago, inventory was continuing to trend along historically low levels. But now that buyer demand has decreased, we are beginning to see inventory slowly grow again. And as inventory grows, days on market are beginning to slowly increase as some sellers become

The pace of home-building in Dane County is actually quite slow when viewed over the arc of the last 20 years. Take a look at this chart which shows the number of housing starts in Dane County for every October since the year 2000. 

The impact of slow home construction

A low supply of new construction homes is one of the main reasons why we expect high prices and low inventory for many years to come. Here are 6 other local trends which we see driving the market in this direction: 

• New condominium construction has slowed to a near standstill, and is far below what is needed to satisfy the demand for condos in the Madison area. 
• Dane County foreclosures are occurring at an historically slow pace. 
• Many homeowners, who would otherwise

You could be waiting for a long time, and perhaps, many years. 

Why do we expect prices to remain elevated?

The big reason is consistently low supply.

And one huge factor driving low supply is our region's rapid population growth. Dane County is currently the fastest-growing region in the state, and according to a recent study by the Capital Area Regional Planning Commission, that trend will continue. The study projects the county's population will grow by more than 200,000 residents by the year 2050.

And yet there's very little new supply in the pipeline to accommodate that growth.

Yes, Dane County has added hundreds of new housing developments over the last decade, but most of that new construction has been for apartments, not homes and

Recently a friend called us and asked for a referral to a trusted lender. Her daughter Emma, a first-time home buyer, was already talking to a mortgage lender. But Emma wasn't getting the time and the information that she needed to better understand the mortgage process.

So we referred Emma and her mom to Karen Wedvick from Wintrust Mortgage. And as it turned out, Karen's approach was exactly what Emma and her mom were looking for. Karen gave Emma a great introduction to the mortgage process and helped Emma map out all of her next steps. 

Emma's story is a common one. With so many lenders to choose from in the Madison area, sometimes it can take a little time to find the right fit. 

At Mad City Dream Homes, we're always available to refer you to