Most Experts Expect Home Value Gains Will Slow

Despite low inventory and persistent price gains in U.S. residential real estate markets, most of the 111 panelists who participated in the latest Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey believe that home values will level-off. The panel expects home values to rise an average of 4.3 percent nationally in 2015 (they rose 5% last year), and after next year, foresee annual gains closer to 3 percent.

The overall outlook for U.S. home values is mostly unchanged compared to last quarter, and the expectations gap between the least optimistic and most optimistic experts continues to narrow.

However, the most optimistic panelists still expect home values to grow at more than twice the average annual pace of the least optimistic panelists. The gap between the two groups is significant and amounts to a 2.5-year difference in when the two groups expect U.S. home values to eclipse their pre-recession peak.