NAR Expects House Price Rebound Next Year

Washington, DC, May 5, 2009--The National Association of Realtors, in its latest economic forecast, anticipates that the nation's unemployment rate will hit 10.2 percent next year.

The group also boosted its expectations for resale home prices and sales in 2010 from an earlier forecast.

In 2009, NAR expects the median price of resale homes to drop 4.9 percent compared to 2008, falling to $188,500, before climbing 4.4 percent to $196,800 next year.

NAR's latest forecast also calls for 4.97 million home resales this year, a 1.1 percent rise compared to 4.91 million last year, with sales of resale homes projected to rise 6.3 percent in 2010.

In its previous forecast, released last month, NAR estimated that the median price of resale homes would drop 5.1 percent this year and rise 4.1 percent in 2010, and that sales of resale homes would rise 1 percent this year and climb another 5.8 percent in 2010.

NAR's affordability index, which measures how affordable homes are for households based on mortgage rates and income levels, decreased in March but remained near its record-high February level -- the index was up 30.8 percentage points from its March 2008 level.