no houses?

there was a purge in the early 90's where 5-7 houses all got their charters pulled and many of the houses just were never able to return and their houses fell into disrepair/were made into appts

there are unhoused chapters at other big 10 schools (namely IU and Mich). In both cases, the unhoused chapters are pretty unestablished and not very strong. At Madison this isnt any different, you need a house to be relevant

Also, Langdon (greek row) is already pretty built up and it costs a ton of money to demolish stuff and rebuild a fraternity house. While more established chapters have this kind of money, the new unhoused chapters typically do not have the million or more necessary to build up their own house

Let's be honest. No one goes to this school because of its quality living facilities. Many fraternities don't have houses and some that do are dumps. The sorority houses are OK, but many of the houses are sorely in need of updating. And let's not even talk about the dorms that are absolutely substandard compared to other major universities or the overprice apartments and houses near campus that should have been condemned decades ago. Good thing this school has other things going for it.