Housing Bounce Starts in 2011, Says Index of Top Experts

If you're keeping track of all the real estate surveys out there, add this one to your list: MacroMarkets, the research firm founded by housing sage Robert Shiller, has started releasing a monthly "home expectations survey" that asks a hundred of the country's top housing analysts to forecast prices five years out.

And guess what? May's consensus predicts national home prices, as measured by the benchmark S&P/Case-Shiller Index, to start recovering next year. That might seem optimistic, as the index has been sinking steadily over the past three years, with only one uptick posted so far (in February's data, the latest available).

After a fat zero predicted for this year's price gain, the survey sees 2 percent growth next year, a pace which adds up to a cumulative 12.36 percent by the end of 2014. The range of predictions for 2014 runs from a depressing -17.99 percent to a giddy +36.74 percent.

"This is not necessarily a resounding indicator of a raging bull market, but it's a more optimistic projection than we would have seen ... six months ago," says Terry Loebs, MacroMarkets managing director and co-developer of the survey.

But do these numbers mean anything?