Home Prices to Rise in 2010:

According to a recent poll by Reuters, U.S. house prices will manage a small gain in 2010. Home sales and prices may retreat slightly in the near-term after government tax credits to homebuyers end. But that trend will be countered by historically low mortgage rates and the fact that housing affordability is now near the best it has ever been. This is likely to put prices back on a slow path upward.

Three-quarters of the economists that were polled said it was possible for the average home price to return to where they were in 2006 – before the crash. That would require a rise of more than 40 percent and will still take a long time. Home prices as measured by the Case-Shiller 20 city index should rise 1.4% this year and 3% next year according to the economists' median forecast....