By: dmc-admin//July 23, 2007//
Foreclosures are up in Wisconsin in a pretty significant way.
ForeclosuresWI.com reports that over the last year, the foreclosure rate shot up 45 percent in Milwaukee County, while they rose 11 percent in Dane County. The state as a whole, meanwhile, averaged a 21 percent increase.
And while more people may be moving out of their homes, economic development leaders arent too worried. Yet.
It could have a ripple effect if people are leaving their homes, they may soon be leaving their businesses, said Pat OBrien, executive director of the Milwaukee Development Corporation and part of the Milwaukee 7. We havent seen the ripple yet, though.
Jim Paetsch, the Milwaukee 7s director of corporate relocation, expansion & attraction, said that rising foreclosure rates have not had a deterring effect on companies and corporations looking at the city for a possible new home.
People are interested in workforce availability, getting facilities and different proximities, he said. Companies will look at business closures, both as a barometer for the region and a way to determine if there are more people for hire, but I havent talked to a business yet that wants foreclosure figures.
Paetsch and OBrien both mark the rise in foreclosures as a national trend that, while Milwaukee may find itself party to, shouldnt surface as an exclusive problem to the area.
Things change, Paetsch said. I mean, Milwaukee used to count manufacturing as 60 percent of its economy, and now that numbers down to 17 percent but its still the second highest in the country. Whenever we experience those ripples with facilities closing, there seems to be growth in other sectors.
In Dane County, that may be even more so.
Although foreclosure rates are rising throughout the nation, the capital regions economy is relatively stable, thanks in part to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the state government and our growing private sector base particularly in our target sectors of agriculture, biotechnology and healthcare which lend stability to our economic climate, said Jennifer Alexander, president of the Regional Economic Development Entity.
Michael Gay, the business development manager with the Office of Business Resources inside Madisons Department of Planning and Development, agreed.
We have a history here of being kind of recession proof, he said. We dont feel a lot of the blips that other parts of the state do. Its not to say that were completely immune, but Madison is a relatively insulated area.
Gay pointed to the fact that industrial market accounts for less than 10 percent of Madisons economy as a key part of its insulation.
Factory layoffs and plant closings dont affect this area like they would in other parts of Wisconsin, he said.
Other things sometimes do, however.
Within the last five years, weve taken a few hits the government laid off 10,000 jobs and we started to feel some of the effects of the changes of the national economy. Well never be perfectly recession proof, but the attitude out here is geared toward supporting natural resources and maintaining quality of life.
If anything, he said, the problem for employers is getting good people to fill the jobs in the area.
There are only 460,000 people in Dane County, Gay said. The unemployment rate is 3 percent, so basically, that seems to be saying that the people that arent working dont want to be working.
OBrien said that if foreclosures were a Wisconsin-specific problem, thered be more cause for concern, but at this point, there isnt too much trepidation.
It could end up making the United States as a whole less competitive, but this isnt just a Milwaukee problem or a Madison problem or a Wisconsin problem, he said. Business is still coming here. Were still moving forward.
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