House Prices Won’t Return to Peak Until 2020: Moody’s Analyst

At least another decade will pass before housing prices return to peak 2006 levels, according to an analyst at Moody’s Economy.com.

Analyst Celia Chen wrote that housing prices will decline for another year, and that the Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller housing price index will fall 40% from the 2006 peak with housing bottoming out in Q210 before rebounding.

“The correction will be not only deep but also lengthy,” Chen wrote. “The national price level will not regain its 2006 high until 2020, a peak-to-peak housing cycle of 14 years.”

The projection seems conservative in light of historic data. Chen wrote that after the Great Depression, national housing prices took nearly 20 years to return to the peak. Chen added 15 years passed since Japan’s residential market lost half its value and there are no signs yet of a recovery.

According to the report, housing prices will regain normalized rates of appreciation during the first five years of the recovery. But the decline in prices and the subsequent recovery vary by region to region. In some states, prices will decline 6% or less and recovery will come before 2014. Other areas that have experienced declines of more than 46% won’t get back to 2006 prices until 2023.

Write to Austin Kilgore.