Daily Real Estate News  |  June 16, 2009  |   Analysts Mixed on Housing Recovery
Although several economic indicators suggest improving conditions, some analysts are looking at the housing market’s prospects skeptically.

"I'm not saying that home building is still headed straight down like it had been for months and months, but I'm hesitant to say that we're bouncing off the bottom," says Joe Snider, a vice president and senior credit officer with Moody's Investors Service. "I think it's more a case of we're crawling along the bottom."

Brad Hunter, chief economist and national director of consulting at Metrostudy, a housing market research firm, says housing starts are low and will stay that way until builder inventory is sold, credit is more freely available, and buyers jump back into the market.

John Burns, a real estate consultant who advises major home builders, expects that the median home price will fall another 5 percent to 6 percent before leveling off.

"It's the better areas that are going to get hit over the next 12 months," he predicts, because of rising foreclosures among prime buyers.

Renters, Burns concludes, aren’t feeling any need to become owners because they aren’t confident about their financial situation nor are they confident that prices won’t drop farther. "It's going to take a couple years to work our way through this," he says.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Dawn Wotapka (06/15/2009)