After years of decline, housing prices are expected to stabilize or even increase in some parts of the Bay Area this year, according to a new forecast.
Stabilizing prices are a sign of a healthier market, even though homebuyers still face challenges -- tight credit, not many homes for sale and competition from investors paying cash.
In a report to be released Monday, Clear Capital, a real estate valuations company in Truckee, predicts that prices will remain almost flat this year -- compared with a 4.7 percent drop in 2011 -- in the San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont metropolitan area, including Contra Costa County. Silicon Valley should see a 1.6 percent increase in home prices, compared with a 2.5 percent drop last year, the company said.
"This region overall is doing pretty well," said Clear Capital research director Alex Villacorta.
In three of the past four years, Bay Area home prices have declined from the previous year, including a dramatic 35 percent drop for the San Francisco metro area in 2008 and a 28 percent drop in Silicon Valley that year. Only in 2010 were there slight increases, followed by last year's drop.
See more By Pete Carey of Mercury News
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