Nominal house prices will continue to rise for the UFA 100, a broad based composite index of 100 US cities. Under current economic conditions commonly used house price indices will rise between 8.5 and 22 percent cumulatively over the next five years, but recovery will be slow for the larger metro areas in the Case-Shiller 10 city composite.

These are the key findings of the latest UFA Mortgage Report by University Financial Associates of Ann Arbor, which successfully predicted increased defaults in Southern California in the mid-90s and the current increases in defaults.

“UFA’s nominal, five-year house price forecasts are solidly positive at both the state and metro area levels,” said Dennis Capozza, who is the Dale Dykema Professor of Business Administration in the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, and a founding principal of UFA. “This forecast confirms that for lenders, homebuyers and investors in the residential real estate and mortgage markets it is once again safe in most metro areas to go back in the water.”

UFA has provided accurate and timely house price predictions since 1990 -the original and most credible house price forecasts available. The research that UFA’s principals have done underlies many other popular house price forecasts.

The UFA forecast is rosier than the latest price expectations survey of more than 100 experts and economists by Pulsenomics for Zillow. The September 2012 edition of the Zillow survey found that professional forecasters expect home prices to rise by an average of 2.3 percent during 2012. The survey was compiled from 113 responses by a diverse group of economists, real estate experts and investment and market strategists.

The Zillow survey reflects quite a change in attitude toward home prices this year given that three months ago (for the June survey), economists thought home prices were going to fall by 0.4 percent. The lowest price projection among panelist responses was a depreciation of 2.5 percent by the end of this year, while the highest was an appreciation of 9.2 percent.

By 2016, the average price increase of predictions by Zillow’s survey participants was 15.6 percent. The most pessimistic in the survey foresaw a 5.6 percent increase in prices while the most optimistic was a 24.2 percent over the next four years.