Wisconsin's real estate and economic outlook

Registration is well underway for our annual real estate conference on June 4th in Madison. The theme this year is "Navigating the Credit Crunch: What's Ahead for Wisconsin?" Today we talked with the Graaskamp Center's Academic Director Stephen Malpezzi on the highlights of the event:

"It's been clear for some time that the slow economy has been driven by first the housing market and now commercial real estate markets. If you're concerned about the economic outlook, this conference is the place to be.

We have speakers who are not only experts on the connection between housing and the real estate markets but macroeconomic thought leaders as well--our keynote speaker David Altig from the Atlanta Fed and Matt Feldman with the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago.

We have top academics and people who are deep experts in practice, like Scott Fecteau at Associated Bank and Tim Hanna, longtime mayor of Appleton who is active on the state scene with new ideas on how state and local governments can connect more productively. Politics and economics are more connected than ever (see TARP, TALF, etc.). We're very excited to have Ken Goldstein to talk about how the political landscape effects housing and the economy.

We have the state's leading expert outside government on Wisconsin's fiscal situation Todd Barry (Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance), and we have five leading economists, including Michael Knetter, dean of the Wisconsin School of Business, on a single panel in a unique rapid-fire Q&A.

If you want to be part of the dialogue on real estate and the economy, you should attend this conference."

See the full agenda and register by Thursday May 27th at www.bus.wisc.edu/whc2010.