US Housing Market has Bottomed: Economists

The housing market might have hit its valley

Economists increasingly believe the U.S. housing market has finally reached its valley after a series of housing market day points were released this week, Bloomberg News reported. New-home sales exceeded expectations and price declines slowed, according to reports released yesterday, which both offered glimpses of hope for the market. The news organization also expects this week’s pending home-sales index to reach two-year highs. More importantly, according to some analysts, consumer confidence remained at a high level in April, and consumers are reporting that jobs are easier to find. “That confidence is going to allow consumers to go out and buy homes,” said Chris Rupkey, chief economist of Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in New York.

Other experts, including analysts from Zillow, CoreLogic, Bank of America and Re/Max also predicted that the market has finally bottomed. “The crash is over,” added Mark Zandi, chief economist for Moody’s Analytics. “Home sales — both new and existing — and housing starts are now off the bottom.”

Even the recovery skeptics, who still fear that the backlog of distressed properties will sink home prices further and hinder a recovery, believe that prices may fall further over the next 12 months, but are still on the verge of bottoming out. Only Robert Shiller, co-creator of the Case-Shiller Index, expressed concern that the housing market could continue “edging down for years.”