Wausau home prices keep climbing as sales lag | Getting Real with Real Estate

Marathon County real estate report for first quarter, 2026

One thing that always dawns on me when I prepare this report: it often looks the same.

What do I mean? It’s usually some combination of “sales slow” and “median prices rise.”

That doesn’t appear to have stopped in the first quarter of 2026. And yet I always seem to find something else to consider as I parse through the data.

So let’s dive into the first quarter of the year to see what the data tells us about Marathon County home prices and sales. We’ll also look at Wausau home prices and a new source for Wausau rent data.

Marathon County home sales remain below peak

Here is what the first quarter of sales looks like:

First quarter sales over time have ticked upward in the past few years. But they haven’t really recovered to pre-2020 levels.

The sales picture tells only part of the story. The bigger question is what is happening to prices — and what that means for buyers, renters and affordability in the Wausau area.

Below, we get into the full-year 2026 projection, the median price trend, Wausau-specific city data and a new rent measure that helps explain the shifting affordability picture.