September 2025 · Market · 3 min read · by Kinan Sawar, MD — REALTOR® at Shorewest, REALTORS®
The 2025 peak selling season came and went without the spring rebound bulls were hoping for. Affordability is still the ceiling.
For three years running, forecasters have called for the market to “normalize.” In 2025, normal turned out to mean flat.
Spring and summer are when housing does most of its business. This year the season arrived quietly: modest demand, prices roughly flat, and none of the urgency of the boom years. Buyers showed up but kept their discipline.
The reason is simple arithmetic. With prices near record highs and mortgage rates still well above their pre-pandemic level, the monthly payment on a typical home remains out of reach for a large share of would-be buyers. Until incomes catch up or rates fall meaningfully, the ceiling holds.
The flat national average hides a widening split: the most overbuilt, overvalued Sun Belt metros are softening, while affordable, supply-constrained Midwestern markets keep grinding higher. The average is calm; the map is not.
Kinan Sawar, MD — REALTOR® at Shorewest, REALTORS®, serving Milwaukee and Southeast Wisconsin (Milwaukee, Waukesha, Ozaukee, Washington, Racine, Kenosha, and Walworth counties). Email: [email protected] · Phone: (618) 713-2964.
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Home values and rents are Zillow ZHVI/ZORI estimates for the named area, as of 2026-07-03; incomes and population are U.S. Census (SAIPE, Population Estimates); migration is IRS Statistics of Income. Area-level statistical estimates for information only — not an appraisal, and not financial, legal, or tax advice.