End in sight for housing slump?

Home prices will slip further over the rest of the year, before beginning to rebound in 2012, according to a forecast by a leading housing market analyst.
The study, released Tuesday by Fiserv, predicted that home prices for more than 95 percent of metro areas will rise by the beginning of 2013.
Using data from the Fiserv Case-Schiller Index of home prices, Fiserv--which provides information management systems to the financial industry--found that the drop in home prices that began again last year continued in the first quarter of 2011. The group's research found that prices had fallen in 302 out of 384 metro areas surveyed.
At the same time, however, Fiserv noted several positive signs for the beleaguered sector, including a slower pace of foreclosures. In part because Fiserv also anticipates broader economic growth next year, analysts for the company project "a broad-based recovery for housing that will begin in early 2012."
"Between the first quarter of 2012 and the first quarter of 2013, homes are projected to increase by an average of 2.7 percent, with gains in 365 out of 384 metro areas," Fiserv said in a press release.
The exceptions to that trend, David Stiff, Fiserv's chief economist, told The Lookout in an interview, are markets such as Phoenix, Las Vegas, and parts of southern California, which are still struggling with a glut of inventory built up during the housing boom.More...