MILWAUKEE — As spiraling home prices and scant housing availability threaten Wisconsinites’ access to the American dream of homeownership, the Badger Institute is offering lawmakers a compilation of our year of research into how to make housing more attainable.
A printed copy of “Wisconsin Housing: High Prices, Low Inventory, Workable Solutions” has been given to every member of the Wisconsin Legislature, and copies are available for download by the public on the Badger Institute website.
The volume compiles the findings of “Out of Reach,” the Institute’s 16-part series documenting Wisconsin’s housing situation and exploring policy responses to get markets working as they’re supposed to.
The income needed to afford a typical home in Wisconsin cities has turned upward sharply. What took an income of $64,700 in 2021 in metro Madison by 2024 took an income of $108,000.
Housing costs are keeping out public safety employees, such as paramedics, in costly rural areas. Some Door County rescue staffers commute in from Appleton.
Wisconsin could build more houses — by easing up regulations on lot sizes, say policy experts. Builders can quantify the difference in price regulatory costs make from one city to another.
One city that’s grown by keeping housing available and reasonable is Hobart. We look at how they do it. We examine, as well, the trade-offs and tensions in another growing community, and how employers made homes practical in another Wisconsin town.
One key policy prescription: Make sure local governments retain control but provide homebuilders the certainty they need by requiring that a community’s zoning code aligns with its comprehensive plan. This simple legislative change would expedite the process and minimize costly delay.
“The solution to our housing crisis is not rent caps or big government subsidies. That would just make things worse,” said Badger Institute President Mike Nichols. “The solution is increasing housing supply by minimizing government regulation and vacillation and letting developers give prospective homeowners what they want. Let the market work.”
The Badger Institute is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit source since 1987 of the information and reporting needed to engage and energize Wisconsinites in discussion and timely action on key public policy issues critical to growth, prosperity and free markets.
