The consensus of more than 100 real estate experts and economists’ 2016 home price expectations has risen slightly from last quarter but is lower than 2015 price levels.  The experts predict that annual price appreciation in 2016 will end up at 3.65 percent by the end of the year, according to the first quarter 2016 survey conducted by Pulsenomics, up from a consensus of 3.4 percent in the survey conducted in the fourth quarter of last year.

However, the 2016 forecast is a decline in the 3.89 percent price increase the Pulsenomics experts reported for 2015. Annualized consensus forecasts have declined for five straight quarters, from a peak pf 4.37 percent in the first quarter of 2015.

Last quarter the panel predicted a gradual slowing of the U.S. housing market. At that time, Over the next five years the experts expected average annual home-value appreciation rate would fall to an average annual appreciation rate of 3 percent.

In this quarter’s survey, they raised long term expectations slightly, to a 3.3 percent average annual growth rate through 2020 – slower than recent and pre-bubble historic norms. The pre-bubble (1987-1999) average annual growth rate in home values was 3.6 percent, and since the recovery began in roughly January 2012, U.S. home value growth has averaged 4.5 percent per year.