It may be too soon to tell, but I found this article in the Capital Times very interesting.
In particular I found this passage very interesting:
And there are early indications that life in the suburbs is starting to look less attractive to home buyers.
Consider the median price of homes sold in McFarland is down nearly 19 percent from a year ago, falling from $258,000 to $210,000, according to the latest figures from DaneCountyMarket.com.
In Mount Horeb, prices are down 14 percent. In Fitchburg, they’re off 8 percent. In the New Glarus/Belleville/Monticello market along the Dane-Green County border, prices are down nearly 10 percent.
While real estate insiders say it’s dangerous to draw conclusion from just a few months of data — Verona, Waunakee and Sauk City, for example, have all seen prices climb in 2008 — there seems a growing realization that gasoline prices are not going down again.
That’s left some observers wondering if the drivable suburb — the model for virtually all post-World War II development in Wisconsin and the U.S. — has run its course.
That’s bad news for those who need affordable housing. If this article is correct, housing prices in Madison are going to remain quite unaffordable and in order to find housing that is more affordable, people will have to pay in other ways. It’s interesting times that we live in.
