Will Housing Prices Soar By 2012?

NEWYORK – April 4, 2012 – Real estate economists and analysts are increasinglyoptimistic that the housing market will have a dramatic recovery in the nexttwo years, according to results of a new semi-annual survey of 38 real estateeconomists and analysts conducted by the Urban Land Institute’s Center forCapital Markets and Real Estate.

The economists predict that the nationalaverage for home prices will stop falling by this year and a subsequentturnaround will occur. By next year, they project that home prices will beginto rise by 2 percent, and then get a larger boost of 3.5 percent by 2014. Theeconomists also predict that housing starts will nearly double by next year.

Theyalso foresee rental prices continuing to increase for all property types,ranging from 0.8 percent to 5 percent.

The economists’ predictions were madeon assumptions that the economy would continue to strengthen, including alarger drop in unemployment.

“While geopolitical and global economic eventscould change the forecast going forward, what we see in this survey isconfidence that the U.S. real estate economy has weathered the brunt of therecent financial storm and is poised for significant improvement over the nextthree years,” says Patrick L. Phillips, ULI chief executive officer. “Theseresults hold much promise for the real estate industry.”

Source: “Real EstateWill Rock in 2014,” RISMedia (March 31, 2012)