Study: Home prices forecast to inch up in Wilmington area

A study that generally is quite gloomy about national home values in the next two years predicts a small price increase for the Wilmington area.

Home values are expected to climb 2.6 percent in the Wilmington area over the next year and then 1.9 percent from 2012 to 2013, according to a study by Fiserv, a publicly traded financial analysis company.

Local real estate and economic experts, however, say home prices have fallen by up to a third here since the housing bubble burst. So there is a long way to go to recover from what most say were unrealistic prices in the middle of the last decade.

Additionally, real estate brokers here said a price increase would depend on price point and location. The Fiserv study predicted what it called a triple dip in national home prices. The first, it said, was in 2009 as national values plummeted after the housing bubble burst. Then last winter was a second dip, following the first-time home buyer tax credit.

Then came the scandal over how mortgage servicers were negligently processing foreclosures. Now that the scandal has mostly blown over, banks will be speeding up foreclosures, and that will result in the third dip.

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