How many people are from the Milwaukee, WI area???

[Daniel Wendorf]

I was just wondering how may people are from the Milwaukee too Waukesha area. Do you like investing in this area. And what is your favorite strategy of investing for this market?

[Marcus Auerbach]

I believe we have roughly about 1200 private investors in Milwaukee who are both intentional and active. This is a very rough estimate as there is no count. Many of them are a member in one of the main organizations we have: the SEW Appartment Association, the REIA and the BREW City group, but there are a significant number who is not a member of either.

I am excluding accidental landlords, who inherited a property or moved out and then rented their old home. This does also not include corporate or institutional investors, who own a large junk of the approximatley 300,000 rental units in the metro area. (side note to new investors and out of state investors: if you are looking at a listing that has been on the market for 267 days, you did not just discover a "hidden gem" - it has been looked at passed up by probably several thousand people, investors or otherwise)

The number of leases signed every month is probably 8,000 to 12,000 - so if you have a unit for rent that is your market; which of course is distributed over several segments. The majority is about $650 to $2000 monthly, the median at about $1200. There is a market over $2,000: mostly under $2500 with good liquidity, but there are rentals up to $5000 monthly, of course with much slower turn over and longer vacancies. While you can expect to sign a lease in the meat and potato segemnt in 1-3 weeks, the ultra lux segemt over $2,500 may take 1 to 6 months to rent.

We have about 28,000 single family homes sold in the metro area. Including condos, 2/3/4 units the number grows to about 50,000. The median price for a single family home in Milwaukee County (not the city) rose 8% in the last 12 months and is now at $175,000.