“Prices are bottoming now,” according to a Bank of America Merrill Lynch forecast, released this week.
In the fall, the analysts had predicted home prices would drop by 8 percent from the second quarter of 2011 through the first quarter of 2013 — but now they’re revising that forecast, realizing the housing market is stabilizing faster than they originally thought.
The analysts now predict that prices will remain flat for the next two years, as the excess foreclosure inventory is absorbed. They then expect to see a pickup in home prices by 2014.
And in the long-term, they see a big rise in housing prices. From 2012 through 2020, analysts forecast a cumulative growth of 42 percent in home prices (at 4 percent on an annualized basis).
Source: “Home Prices ‘Bottoming Now,’ BofA Merrill Lynch Analysts Say,” HousingWire (March 22, 2012)
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