According to two recent studies the housing market will remain through the remainder of winter and into spring, but it is predicted that by the third quarter of 2011, held back housing demand could push the market into gear and begin a steady speed-up.
Lawrence Yun, the National Association of Realtors chief economist said, "Existing-home sales have shown some improvement, but the foreclosure moratorium is likely to cause some disruption and contribute to an uneven sales performance in the months ahead. Tight credit and appraisals coming in below a negotiated price continue to constrain the market. Nonetheless, there appears to be a pent-up demand that eventually will be unleashed as banks resolve their issues with foreclosures and the labor market improves."
As feared by some economists the home buyer tax credits, federal and state, delayed the housing market's reach to the bottom which also delayed the correction in home prices that are necessary to return housing affordability to its pre-bubble levels and therefore put off recovery until late 2011.
Moody's Economy.com also expects that home prices will continue to drop over the next three quarters in most metro markets, before home prices begin to stabilize by the end of 2011.
Yun further stated, "We've added 30 million people to the U.S. population over the past 10 years, but sales are where they were in 2000, so there appears to be a sizable pent-up demand that could come to the (housing) market once the economy gathers momentum."