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Home sales fall as inventory of homes for sale dips to 20-year low

Shorewest Realtor Beth Jaworski said houses priced right for their condition and location in metro Milwaukee are quickly drawing action amid the scarcity of properties for sale.

“As soon as you put up a listing, within 24 to 48 hours you should have at least one offer. A lot of times you have three to six,” she said.

Normally among the hottest times of the year to buy or sell a house, July came up tepid in metropolitan Milwaukee.

The reason: Not enough homes on the market.

“The decrease in sales is not due to any weakness in the market. Rather, there simply aren’t enough homes for sale to meet demand,” Mike Ruzicka, president of Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors, said Friday.

It’s a national issue as well as a local one.

The number of houses available to buy is at a 20-year low as the appeal of McMansions wanes and baby boomers grow increasingly reluctant to trade up or down from their current homes, according to a survey by Realtor.com.

More than half of the survey respondents, 59%, said they aren’t planning to sell in the next year.

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