The housing market in the Greater Milwaukee area is preparing itself for the coming of the Foxconn assembly plant.
Foxconn had already bought up its property in Mt. Pleasant for their building. So realtors are thinking about the workers coming to fill it.
“When we look at housing there is nothing negative that we really can see with this with the headquarters in downtown and a facility that they are looking to put in Racine,” said Tina Balaka, past president of the Greater Milwaukee Association of Realtors.
That was part of the focus Monday at the annual Wisconsin Residential Real Estate Summit.
In Foxconn’s incentive package with the state, the company is supposed to have a thousand jobs in place by the end of the year and eventually employ 13,000 workers.
“As Foxconn comes in and more jobs come in there is that potential that there could be more housing needs,” said Balaka.
Already the market is struggling to meet those according to Balaka.
“Currently we have a bit of an inventory shortage. That means that there are more buyers out there looking for homes than we have homes to currently sell. So that’s creating more of a seller's market in our area,” said Balaka.
For Cherrelle Scales of Racine, she is hoping to purchase a home in the next two years. She said even if Foxconn drives up housing prices for her family she hopes it will pay wages to help people buy homes.
“Hopefully Foxconn helps a lot of people get jobs so they are able to afford the housing regardless of it if goes up or not,” said Scales.
Realtors said it’s still too early to see how Foxconn will impact the market, but January did see strong sales in Racine County for a normally slow month.
