In Two Years, Real Estate will Rock

In Two Years, Real Estate will Rock

Written by: Steve Cook   Thu, March 29, 2012

Beyond Today's News, Housing Forecasts

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Housing starts will nearly double and home prices will begin to rise in 2013, with prices increasing significantly in 2014.

Those rosy predictions come from a new semi-annual survey of 38 of the nation’s leading real estate economists and analysts by the Urban Land Institute’s Center for Capital Markets and Real Estate. The economists foresee broad improvements for the nation’s economy, real estate capital markets, real estate fundamentals and the housing industry through 2014, including:

• The national average home price is expected to stop declining this year, and then rise by 2 percent in 2013 and by 3.5 percent in 2014.
• Vacancy rates are expected to drop in a range of between 1.2 and 3.7 percentage points for office, retail, and industrial properties and remain stable at low levels for apartments; while hotel occupancy rates will likely rise;
• Rents are expected to increase for all property types, with 2012 increases ranging from 0.8 percent for retail up to 5.0 percent for apartments;