By MoneyWatch.com
Submitted by Andrea Cueny, REALTOR®, Atlanta Fine Homes Sotheby’s International Realty
When will the value of your house finally start climbing again? Below are exclusive forecasts compiled by financial services company Fiserv for 384 real estate markets across the United States. For the most part, the numbers are moving higher — Boston suburbs and parts of Washington state are expected to see sharp gains, and the San Francisco Bay Area is positively booming. While there may be more pain to come in hard-hit Vegas and Miami, at least the double-digit losses are expected to end. Even Salinas, Calif., where home prices were cut by more than half when the bubble burst, is forecast to see a modest increase in prices by next fall.
“We are still trying to sort through how much of this new housing demand was caused by government stimulus and how much was intrinsic,” says Mark Fleming, chief economist at First American Core Logic, a real estate research company. He says that, in general, diversified economies (think Boston) have bounced back better than areas that rely on one industry (think Michigan). Miami will bounce back, Fleming says, because hey, it’s Miami. It always bounces back. Big picture? For the foreseeable future, Fleming expects the real estate market to be more tortoise than hare. “We need slow, sustainable growth.”
The list below is based on metro areas as defined by the federal government. So your town may be part of a larger area, listed under the name of your county or a nearby city.
Click here to see where Georgia falls in the “Forecast: Change in Home Prices” table.