The Wisconsin Rebound: the Fall and Rise of Housing Prices in Wisconsin During the Great Recession

Abstract

This paper details the Wisconsin housing market during the Great Recession. We explore how race, income and density factored into the fall and rise of housing prices from 2003 to 2018, a period spanning before, during and after the recession. We used a mix of GIS-created graduated color scheme and cluster maps, Spearman’s Rho correlations and scatter plot graphs and interviews to garner our data. We found that the relationships between the percentage changes in housing prices and race, income and density were fairly weak-to-moderate statewide. However, the relationship between the percentage change in housing prices and race was moderate-to-strong when we limited our data to areas in the state that contained the highest minority population concentrations.