Home for sale: U.S. house prices continue to climb

National home prices will rise as much as 22 percent in the next five years, says a professor at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business.

Under current economic conditions, commonly used house price indices, like the Case-Shiller 10, Case-Shiller 20 and UFA 100, will increase between 8.5 percent and 22 percent cumulatively by 2017, says Dennis Capozza, U-M professor of finance and real estate and a founding principal of University Financial Associates, a risk-management firm that forecasts mortgage and consumer loan performance.

UFA's newly released five-year nominal house price forecast for the third quarter of 2012 shows that prices will continue to rise for the UFA 100, a broad based composite index of 100 U.S. cities—although recovery will be slow for the larger metro areas in the Case-Shiller 10 city composite.

"UFA's nominal, five-year house price forecasts are solidly positive at both the state and metro area levels," said Capozza, the Dykema Professor of Business Administration. "This 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."