Rental Property in Wisconsin: What the Numbers Actually Look Like

Wisconsin is the state that makes the Midwest case honestly, and it does so for a reason nobody expects: insurance.

The average Wisconsin homeowners premium is $1,680 a year at $300,000 of dwelling coverage. That is the lowest of the seven Midwest states in this set — $1,226 below Iowa's $2,906, roughly a third of Kansas's $4,868, and only 6.09% of gross rent on the worked example below. In a series where insurance repeatedly turns out to be the line that breaks a deal, Wisconsin is the control group.

The tradeoff is on the other side of the ledger. Wisconsin has the second-highest median sale price in this set at $358,877, and a 1.28% effective property tax rate that produces a $4,593.63 annual bill — 2.73 times the insurance premium and 16.64% of gross rent. Wisconsin is a property-tax state, not an insurance state.

Net result: the best cap rate on a state median in this Midwest set — 3.85% — and still a -$639.11 monthly cash flow at 25% down and 7.00%. That is worth sitting with. Wisconsin is where the Midwest thesis works best, and at 2026 financing costs the median house still does not carry itself.

A note before you start: this is general educational information about how rental property arithmetic works in Wisconsin. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice, and it is not a recommendation about any property. Wisconsin property tax is levied by municipality and school district with wide local variation, and insurance is priced per structure — Wisconsin's rating territories are unusually granular, with every city and locality carrying a fire protection classification from 1 to 10. Talk to a Wisconsin CPA about tax treatment, a licensed Wisconsin insurance agent about a real quote, and a Wisconsin real estate attorney about anything contractual.

1. What a rental costs to buy here

The statewide median sale price is $358,877 (Redfin, June 2026, up 5.6% year over year).

County medians and carrying costs:

• Dane County (Madison): $497,596, effective property tax rate 1.48%, average insurance $1,673
• Milwaukee County: $306,136, effective property tax rate 1.68%, average insurance $1,871

Note how narrow the insurance spread is — $198 between the two counties — against a $191,460 difference in median price. That is the opposite of Michigan, Kansas, or Florida, where the insurance line is where counties diverge.

The cash you actually need

• Real estate transfer fee: 0.30% ($0.30 per $100 of value under Wis. Stat. Ch. 77, Subch. II), customarily paid by the seller though negotiable. On the $358,877 median that is $1,076.63. Local municipalities may add supplementary fees.
• No mortgage tax, recording tax, intangibles tax, or documentary stamp tax on a mortgage. Wisconsin's transfer fee applies only to deeds and conveyances; county Registers of Deeds charge a flat $30 per-document recording fee for a mortgage, regardless of loan amount. Nothing a Wisconsin buyer pays scales with the loan.
• Closing costs: 2.5% to 3.26%. Rocket Mortgage's February 2026 Wisconsin figure is 3.26% of purchase price for buyers, explicitly excluding seller-paid agent commissions. This article uses the 3.26% sourced point estimate rather than a midpoint, because it is a real published figure for this state.
• Closings are handled by title and escrow companies. Wisconsin is not an attorney-required state.

On the $358,877 statewide median at 25% down:

• Down payment: $358,877 x 0.25 = $89,719.25
• Loan amount: $269,157.75
• Closing costs: $358,877 x 3.26% = $11,699.39
• Buyer-side transfer fee: $0 by custom
• Mortgage recording tax: $0
• Total cash in: $101,418.64

On price growth: FHFA's 2026 Q1 Purchase-Only index put Wisconsin at +4.49% year over year, sixth-highest among all states — the second-strongest appreciation figure in this Midwest set behind Illinois.

2. The two expenses that decide whether it works

Property tax: the expense that decides a Wisconsin deal

The Tax Foundation reads Wisconsin's effective rate at 1.32% on owner-occupied housing value; SmartAsset reads 1.25% and describes it as tied for eleventh-highest of any state. The cluster is tight at 1.25% to 1.32%, and this article uses the 1.28% midpoint.

On the $358,877 example: $358,877 x 1.28% = $4,593.63 a year, or $382.80 a month.

That is the largest single operating expense on this property by a wide margin — 39.69% of total operating expenses, and 2.73 times the insurance line.

Here is the same house with only the effective rate changed:

The full range is worth 0.43 points of cap rate and $128.60 a month — more than double what the insurance range is worth in this state. Note also that both covered counties sit above the statewide figure, by 16% and 31% respectively.

Wisconsin has no ad-valorem homestead exemption that reduces assessed value, which is unusual and mildly good news for a landlord: there is no owner-occupancy exemption for the seller to lose on transfer. What Wisconsin has instead are:

• The Homestead Credit, a refundable state income tax credit (Schedule H) for lower-income homeowners and renters — an income tax item, not a property tax reduction, and not something an investor claims.
• The Lottery and Gaming Credit and the First Dollar Credit, applied automatically to the December tax bill itself rather than to assessed value, plus the broader School Levy Tax Credit applied to all parcels.

The Lottery and Gaming Credit is the one to watch, because it is available only for a primary residence and it appears directly on the bill. A rental does not get it, so a seller-occupied property's bill will be modestly lower than yours. Confirm with the municipal treasurer which credits appear on the current bill and which will survive the sale. Income and school levy credits also vary by year and by district, and Wisconsin assessment practice varies by municipality — some assess annually, some far less often, with a revaluation resetting values in a single step. Never underwrite a Wisconsin rental from the seller's current bill. Get the assessed value, the assessment ratio, and the mill rate from the municipal assessor and treasurer.

Insurance: the cheapest in the Midwest, and here is the honest version of why

The reference figure is $1,680 a year at $300,000 of dwelling coverage with a $1,000 typical all-perils deductible — the average of two independent 2026 surveys that both quote at exactly that tier: Insurance.com at $1,836 and Insurify at $1,524. Those two disagree by about 20%, which is wide, but both are current, both quote the same coverage, and neither can be excluded on a stated reason, so both are averaged and the spread is disclosed.

Directional corroboration at other coverage levels: NerdWallet at $2,175 on $400,000, and ValuePenguin at $1,932 on $350,000 — the latter notably higher than both $300,000 surveys, which is the opposite of the pattern that series shows in other states and is worth a re-check rather than treating as settled.

At $1,680 the premium is $140.00 a month and 6.09% of gross rent. Insurify projects +3.6% for 2026, roughly in line with its national +4%.

Two caveats before you plan on it:

Wisconsin is internally uneven. Hail-exposed western and central counties, and the higher rebuild costs around Milwaukee and Madison, run above the statewide figure. And Wisconsin's rating territories are unusually granular: the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance notes that every city and locality carries a fire protection classification from 1 to 10, with most large cities in classes 1 through 4 and rural areas priced materially higher. A rural Wisconsin rental is not going to quote at $1,680.

A low premium is not a low deductible. See below.

Here is the same house with only the premium changed:

Inside Wisconsin, insurance is worth 0.06 points of cap rate between the two counties — a rounding error. The bottom row is there for scale: moving this identical house to Kansas's insurance market would cost 0.89 points of cap rate and $265.67 a month.

That is the whole Wisconsin advantage in one number, and it is why this is the only state in the Midwest set where a landlord can reasonably underwrite insurance from a statewide average and revisit it later.

The catastrophe deductible: a close call, reported as one

This site records Wisconsin's catastrophe deductible field as not applying, and that was a genuinely close call decided on the regulator's evidence. Both halves of the reasoning belong here.

Why it is recorded as false:

• The Wisconsin Office of the Commissioner of Insurance's Consumer's Guide to Homeowners Insurance (revision 07/2026) describes the homeowners deductible purely as a flat amount — $250, $500, or $1,000 — and mentions wind and hail deductibles in exactly one place: under mobile home policies, where it says those policies may require a wind and/or hail deductible. A separate percentage wind/hail deductible is not presented as a feature of the ordinary Wisconsin homeowners policy by the state's own regulator.
• Wisconsin is absent from the NAIC's list of nineteen states plus DC with hurricane or named-storm deductibles, and it is landlocked.
• It is absent from the standard enumeration of states where percentage wind/hail deductibles are the market convention — a list that includes neighboring Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri.

What is true anyway, and why you should still read your declarations page:

• Wisconsin has real severe-convective-storm and hail exposure, especially in the western and central counties.
• Separate wind/hail deductibles — flat amounts such as $2,500 or $5,000, or percentages typically of 1% to 2% of the dwelling limit — do appear on some Wisconsin homeowners policies, more often on renewals in hail-exposed areas and on older roofs.

So the honest instruction is not "you have one" and not "you don't." It is: look for a separate wind/hail line on the declarations page, and if it is there, convert it to dollars. Section 3 works out that this rental produces $13,819.17 of net operating income in a good year, so:

• A flat $2,500 wind/hail deductible would be 18.09% of a full year's NOI
• A 1% deductible on a $300,000 limit ($3,000) would be 21.71%
• A 2% deductible ($6,000) would be 43.42%

You cannot pass any of it to a tenant. It is not a lease obligation and it is not billable. The point is not that Wisconsin is dangerous on this axis — it is measurably the safest state in this Midwest set — but that "my state does not do percentage deductibles" is a statement about a market convention, not about your policy.

Roof settlement, and the 80% to 90% rule that decides it

Wisconsin's regulator states that most homeowners policies in the state carry replacement cost coverage on the home itself and actual cash value on personal property. That is a better default than in any other state in this set, and it is why this site records Wisconsin's roof settlement as replacement-cost rather than "varies."

But the regulator attaches a condition, and it is the important part: to qualify for full replacement cost on the building, the dwelling must be insured to 80% to 90% of its replacement cost. Below that threshold, the insurer is not obligated to pay the full loss even on a small claim. That is a coinsurance provision, and it bites on partial losses — the everyday ones — not only on total losses.

Two honest qualifications on the replacement-cost finding itself:

1. It is the regulator's general statement about Wisconsin policies, not a roof-specific survey. Wisconsin does not publish data on how many carriers apply an ACV roof schedule by roof age, and hail-market reporting indicates some Wisconsin policies now limit coverage to functional roof damage or depreciate older roofs.
2. Guaranteed or extended replacement cost is a further buy-up that many insurers will not offer on older homes at all.

The gap between replacement cost and ACV on a 15-year-old roof is typically the difference between most of the repair bill and a fraction of it. Ask.

Now do the coinsurance arithmetic, because in Wisconsin it is the concrete action item. Wisconsin rebuild cost runs about $245 per square foot (the midpoint of a published $180 to $310 band shared with South Carolina, Vermont, and Virginia — read it as a range, not a point). So:

An 1,800 square foot house rebuilds for $441,000, which is 22.88% above the statewide median sale price. A $300,000 dwelling limit buys roughly 1,224 square feet of rebuild in Wisconsin.

In Milwaukee County in particular, a landlord who sets the dwelling limit from the purchase price will be insuring a $367,500 rebuild for $306,136 — that is 83.3% of replacement cost, which scrapes into the 80% to 90% band and would fall out of it entirely on a slightly larger house or a slightly cheaper purchase. Get the carrier's replacement cost estimator output and insure to that, not to the price you paid.

The residual market has a hard limit worth knowing. The Wisconsin Insurance Plan (WIP) writes homes, rental dwellings, and certain business properties, and it does not offer replacement cost settlement on either dwelling or personal property: partial dwelling losses are settled on the cost of repairs using common construction methods, and personal property at actual cash value. Only its Homeowner Program carries any liability coverage — the Dwelling and Commercial programs have none, and a rental typically falls to a dwelling form. Condition charges — extra premium for deferred maintenance such as missing shingles — are added at first renewal if noted repairs are not made. And WIP is explicitly temporary: after four years it cannot renew a policy, and the owner must shop the open market again before reapplying.

3. A full worked example

The property. A single-family house at the Wisconsin statewide median of $358,877.

The rent — read this carefully. This site does not carry rent data. The $2,300 a month used below is an assumption chosen to be plausible for a house at that price. It is not a market observation. Pull three to five real comparable listings for the specific neighborhood and substitute the actual number, because Section 4 shows how sensitive the answer is to it.

The other assumptions:

• Vacancy: 8% of gross rent (roughly one month of turnover a year)
• Property management: 10% of collected rent
• Repairs and maintenance: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Capital reserve: 5% of gross scheduled rent
• Financing: 25% down, 30-year fixed at 7.00% — the rate is an assumption, not a quote
• No HOA
• Property tax computed at the statewide 1.28% effective rate. On a real parcel, use the municipal assessor's figures — both covered counties are above it

Step 1 — income

• Gross scheduled rent: $2,300 x 12 = $27,600
• Vacancy loss: $27,600 x 8% = $2,208
• Effective gross income: $27,600 - $2,208 = $25,392

Step 2 — operating expenses

Management is charged on rent actually collected, not scheduled rent:

• Management: $25,392 x 10% = $2,539.20
• Property tax: $358,877 x 1.28% = $4,593.63
• Insurance: $1,680
• Maintenance: $27,600 x 5% = $1,380
• Capital reserve: $27,600 x 5% = $1,380
• Total operating expenses: $11,572.83

Expense ratio: $11,572.83 / $25,392 = 45.58% of collected rent — comfortably inside the 35% to 55% band most rentals land in, and the lowest expense ratio of any state median in this Midwest set. Property tax alone is 39.69% of that line; insurance is 14.52%.

Step 3 — net operating income and cap rate

• NOI = $25,392 - $11,572.83 = $13,819.17
• Cap rate = $13,819.17 / $358,877 = 3.85%

The mortgage is deliberately absent from that figure. Cap rate exists to compare properties independently of how they are financed; putting debt service into it is the most common error in this whole exercise, and it makes two identical houses look like different investments because one buyer put more down.

Step 4 — debt service and cash flow

Loan: $358,877 x 75% = $269,157.75. At 7.00% over 30 years, principal and interest is $1,790.71 a month, or $21,488.52 a year.

• Annual cash flow = $13,819.17 - $21,488.52 = -$7,669.35
• Monthly cash flow = -$639.11
• Debt service coverage ratio = $13,819.17 / $21,488.52 = 0.64

Step 5 — cash-on-cash return

• Cash invested: $101,418.64 (Section 1)
• Cash-on-cash = -$7,669.35 / $101,418.64 = -7.56%

That -7.56% is the best cash-on-cash figure of any state median in this Midwest set. It is still negative.

Rate sensitivity, since 7.00% was an assumption

• At 6.50%: P&I $1,701.26/mo, annual cash flow -$6,595.95
• At 7.00%: P&I $1,790.71/mo, annual cash flow -$7,669.35
• At 7.50%: P&I $1,881.99/mo, annual cash flow -$8,764.71

A full point of rate is worth about $2,168.76 a year — more than the entire annual insurance premium.

The check that almost passes

Add up the three bills a lender escrows:

• Principal and interest: $1,790.71
• Property tax: $4,593.63 / 12 = $382.80
• Insurance: $1,680 / 12 = $140.00
• Total: $2,313.51 a month

Against $2,300 of assumed rent, that is -$13.51 a month — thirteen dollars, which anyone would call even.

That is the trap. The honest analysis in Step 4 loses $639.11 a month. The gap is $625.60 a month, and every dollar of it is Section 4.

4. The expenses people leave out

Vacancy, management, and capital reserves do not arrive as invoices. Nobody bills you for the month the house sits empty, or for the roof you will need in nine years, or — if you self-manage — for your own weekends. So they fall out of the mental model, and the property looks better than it is.

Here is the same house with those three removed and everything else identical:

The three omissions are worth $6,127.20 a year — $2,208 of vacancy, $2,539.20 of management, $1,380 of reserve. They flatter the cap rate by 1.71 percentage points and hide 79.89% of the annual loss.

There is a specific reason this matters more in Wisconsin than in a high-insurance state. When the fixed bills are small, the omitted variable expenses are proportionally larger. The three omissions here are $6,127.20 against $6,273.63 of combined tax and insurance — they are almost the same size as both fixed bills put together. In Kansas the same three omissions were 65.60% of the annual loss; here they are 79.89%. Cheap to carry means the discretionary lines dominate, and the discretionary lines are exactly the ones people zero out.

The left column's 27.73% expense ratio is the tell — the lowest in this whole series, and well below the 35% to 55% band real rentals land in.

Vacancy. Eight percent is roughly one month a year, which is what a single clean turnover costs between move-out and the next tenant's first full month. Setting it to zero assumes the house is never empty, including between tenants.

Management. Set it to zero and the return is paying you for your own labor rather than for the property. Self-managing this house saves $2,539.20 a year, lifting NOI to $16,358.37 and the cap rate to 4.56%, with cash flow improving to -$427.51 a month. It is a real saving. It does not fix the deal, and it stops being free the moment you stop being available — and in Wisconsin, snow and ice removal obligations are a real, seasonal, recurring version of "being available."

Capital reserves. Roofs, HVAC, water heaters, and flooring have known lives, and Wisconsin's heating season puts more load on mechanical systems than most of the country. The 5%-of-rent convention used above is one option. A harsher and equally common convention is 1% of purchase price a year for maintenance and 1% for capital, which here is $3,588.77 each. Run that way: total operating expenses $15,990.37, expense ratio 62.97%, NOI $9,401.63, cap rate 2.62%, cash flow -$1,007.24 a month, DSCR 0.44.

So the honest cap-rate range for this property is 2.62% to 3.85% depending on which reserve convention you choose. Choose one deliberately. The price-based convention has a particular argument in Wisconsin because Section 2 shows rebuild cost running above market price on a typical-size house — so the thing you are reserving against is larger than the thing you paid for.

What would actually have to be true

The rent this property needs. For cash flow to reach zero at this price and this financing, gross scheduled rent must reach about $38,134.82 a year, or $3,177.90 a month — 0.89% of purchase price per month. That is the lowest breakeven ratio in this Midwest set, which is exactly what a low-insurance state should produce. The assumed $2,300 rent is 0.64% of price.

The price this rent supports. Hold rent at $2,300 and solve for the price at which cash flow reaches zero with 25% down: about $253,351, or 71% of the statewide median.

The down payment this price needs. Keep the $358,877 price and the $2,300 rent and solve for the loan the NOI can service: about $173,094 — which means roughly $185,783 down, or 51.77% of the price. That is the smallest breakeven down-payment share of any state in this Midwest set, and it is still more than half the house.

5. What actually varies by county here

Wisconsin's county variation is a property tax story almost exclusively, which is unusual in this series.

Take the identical $358,877 house at $2,300 rent and apply each county's actual tax rate and average premium:

A $915.75 a year swing in NOI between Dane and Milwaukee on the same house at the same rent, and 0.25 percentage points of cap rate. Property tax contributes $717.75 of that; insurance contributes $198. Wisconsin is the mirror image of Michigan, where insurance contributed more than three times what tax did.

Both counties sit above the statewide rate, which means the statewide 1.28% flatters a Madison or Milwaukee underwrite.

Now run each county at its own real median price and a rent assumption scaled to it:

• Dane County at $497,596 with a $3,000 assumed rent, 1.48% tax ($7,364.42) and $1,673 insurance: cash in $140,620.63, NOI $17,170.58, cap rate 3.45%, cash flow -$1,052.01 a month, cash-on-cash -8.98%, DSCR 0.58, rent-to-price 0.60%.
• Milwaukee County at $306,136 with a $2,050 assumed rent, 1.68% tax ($5,143.08) and $1,871 insurance: cash in $86,514.03, NOI $10,894.72, cap rate 3.56%, cash flow -$619.66 a month, cash-on-cash -8.59%, DSCR 0.59, rent-to-price 0.67%.

Milwaukee wins narrowly — a better rent-to-price ratio, 38% less cash to enter, and a cash-on-cash return 0.39 points better — despite carrying the higher tax rate, because Madison's price level pushes the rent-to-price ratio down to 0.60%. Both lose money on these assumptions, and both rankings rest on assumed rents. Substitute real ones.

Two further county-level facts to check for a specific address, neither of which is in a county average:

Wisconsin property tax is municipal. The mill rate is built from municipality, county, school district, and technical college district levies, and it varies substantially between adjoining municipalities in the same county. Milwaukee County alone contains many separate municipalities. Get the parcel's actual rate from the municipal treasurer, and check where the municipality is in its assessment or revaluation cycle.

Fire protection classification prices your insurance. The OCI's 1-to-10 classification means a rural or unincorporated address quotes materially above a city one. If you are buying outside a city, the $1,680 statewide figure is not your number.

6. Financing a rental is not financing a home

These are the standard mechanisms across the mortgage market. Any specific rate or overlay is your lender's, not this article's.

Down payment. Conventional financing on a non-owner-occupied one-unit property generally requires more equity than an owner-occupied purchase — 20% is usually the floor and 25% the common expectation, which is why this article models 25%. FHA and VA are not available for a property you do not occupy. The genuine exception is house hacking: a two-to-four-unit property you live in one unit of qualifies for owner-occupied programs. Milwaukee's duplex stock makes this a genuinely realistic route in Wisconsin.

Rate. Investment-property loans price above owner-occupied loans. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac apply loan-level price adjustments for investment occupancy that scale with loan-to-value and credit score; lenders pass those through as rate or points. The 7.00% modeled above is an assumption. Get a real quote. Note from the sensitivity above that a single point of rate costs more here than the entire annual insurance premium — which is a reason to spend your negotiating energy on the loan rather than the policy in this particular state.

Reserves. Lenders typically require post-closing reserves — months of principal, interest, taxes, and insurance held in liquid assets — scaling with the number of financed properties you own.

Rental income counting. Lenders credit a portion of market or lease rent toward qualifying, not all of it. Ask what percentage yours uses and whether they need an appraiser's rent schedule.

DSCR loans. A debt service coverage ratio loan qualifies the property rather than the borrower, comparing property income to debt service and largely skipping personal income documentation. The trade is a higher rate, a larger down payment, frequent prepayment penalties, and a minimum DSCR — commonly stated at or above 1.0 and often above 1.2.

Look at Section 3. This property's DSCR is 0.64, and even with vacancy, management, and reserves stripped out it is 0.93. It does not qualify at 75% loan-to-value on either version.

Insurance-to-value is a lender question too. Section 2's 80% to 90% replacement-cost threshold is not only a coverage issue; lenders also set minimum dwelling coverage requirements, and a limit set from the purchase price can be both insufficient for the carrier and short of the lender's requirement at the same time. Sort the replacement cost estimate out early.

7. What to check before you buy in this state

Property tax, from the municipality rather than the listing — this is first in Wisconsin.

1. Get the assessed value, assessment ratio, and mill rate from the municipal assessor and treasurer. A statewide 1.28% is for articles; both covered counties are above it.
2. Ask where the municipality is in its assessment or revaluation cycle. Wisconsin municipalities revalue on their own schedules, and a revaluation can move a bill in one step.
3. Identify which credits appear on the current bill — Lottery and Gaming, First Dollar, School Levy — and which survive the sale. The Lottery and Gaming Credit requires a primary residence, so a rental loses it.
4. Check for special assessments and special charges on the tax bill; Wisconsin municipalities put a variety of items there.

Insurance: the premium is the easy part here, the limit is the hard part.

1. Get a bindable landlord policy quote for the specific address — a dwelling fire form with loss-of-rents coverage, not a homeowners quote and not a statewide average.
2. Get the carrier's replacement cost estimator output and insure to it. Wisconsin's regulator states that full replacement cost on the dwelling generally requires insuring to 80% to 90% of replacement cost, and falling below that can reduce payment even on a small claim.
3. Run the coinsurance arithmetic yourself. At roughly $245 per square foot, a 1,500 square foot house rebuilds for about $367,500 — above the statewide median sale price and 20.04% above Milwaukee County's median.
4. Read the deductible section and look specifically for a separate wind/hail line, flat or percentage. Wisconsin has no statewide convention, but some policies carry one — commonly $2,500 or $5,000 flat, or 1% to 2%.
5. Get the roof age in writing and ask whether the roof settles at replacement cost, whether a functional damage limitation applies, and whether guaranteed or extended replacement cost is even offered on a house of that age.
6. Check the address's fire protection classification, especially outside a city.
7. Confirm the policy carries loss of rents and find out how many months it pays.
8. Understand what the Wisconsin Insurance Plan does not do before you need it: no replacement cost settlement on dwelling or personal property, no liability on the dwelling form a rental would use, condition charges at first renewal, and no renewal at all after four years.
9. Flood and sewer backup are separate. No property policy covers flood, and water/sewer backup is an endorsement — relevant in Wisconsin's older basemented housing stock.

The rent, from the market.

1. Pull three to five genuine comparable rentals for the specific neighborhood and note how long they sat.
2. Divide monthly rent by purchase price. Section 4's breakeven for this example was 0.89% — the lowest bar in this Midwest set. The assumed $2,300 was 0.64%.

The law, from the statute and the administrative code rather than from an article.

1. Do not take eviction timelines, notice periods, security-deposit handling, or late-fee rules from a blog — including this one. Wisconsin is unusual in having two sources you have to read together: Wis. Stat. Chapter 704 (Landlord and Tenant) and Wis. Admin. Code ch. ATCP 134 (Residential Rental Practices), administered by the Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. ATCP 134 imposes specific requirements on rental agreements, disclosures, and security deposit handling that are easy to miss if you only read the statute. Read them at https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/statutes/statutes/704 and https://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/code/admin_code/atcp/090/134, or have a Wisconsin real estate attorney walk you through both.
2. Check the municipality separately. Milwaukee and Madison both operate rental registration or inspection programs, and local requirements vary across the state.

The money and the tax treatment.

1. Size your cash reserves against a roof replacement at Wisconsin rebuild cost, not against a month of mortgage payments.
2. Ask a Wisconsin CPA how the property will be taxed, including depreciation, passive activity loss rules, Wisconsin's state income tax treatment of rental income, and treatment on sale.

What to do next

Every figure above came from a data file or was computed in front of you. Re-run all of it with your own numbers.

The Wisconsin rental analysis calculator does exactly the work in Sections 3 and 4 — enter your price, your real local rent, and your own vacancy, management, and reserve assumptions, and it produces NOI, cap rate, cash flow, cash-on-cash, and DSCR. It also warns you when you have left out the expenses Section 4 is about. In a low-carrying-cost state that warning matters more, not less: Section 4 showed the three omitted lines are worth $6,127.20 against $6,273.63 of combined tax and insurance.

Because property tax is the expense that decides a Wisconsin deal, the Wisconsin mortgage payment calculator is the more useful second stop — it gives you the principal and interest figure for the rate you are actually quoted, worth about $2,169 a year per point, and it lets you swap in the municipal tax figure rather than a statewide rate.

The Wisconsin insurance premium estimator is still worth running, mostly for the coverage limit rather than the premium: Section 2 shows that a 1,500 square foot Wisconsin house rebuilds for more than the statewide median sale price, and the 80% to 90% insurance-to-value threshold is measured against that rebuild figure.

This article is general educational information about rental property arithmetic in Wisconsin, based on figures current as of August 2026. It is not investment, tax, insurance, or legal advice. The rent figures in the worked examples are stated assumptions, not market data. Insurance premiums, property tax assessments, and mortgage rates change and vary by property. Consult a Wisconsin CPA, a licensed Wisconsin insurance agent, and a Wisconsin real estate attorney before buying.