Mark Zandi, chief economist at at Moody's Economy.com in West Chester, Pennsylvania, said in an interview with Reuters home prices will resume their decline by early next year as another flood of foreclosures hits. Home prices, as measured by the Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index, will trough in the third quarter of 2010 after declining 38 percent, Zandi said. The index peaked in the second quarter of 2006 and hit a trough in the first quarter of 2009, a drop of about 32 percent. Home prices in many regions have been rising, but that's because foreclosure sales fell over the summer and fall as mortgage servicers tried to put stressed homeowners into the Home Affordable Modification Program and other modification plans. "This lull in foreclosures sales has resulted in the price gains in the past few months," he said. Zandi said 7.5 million foreclosure sales will have taken place between 2006 and 2011. The majority of these sales, however, have not emerged yet, with 4.8 million foreclosure sales expected between 2009 and 2011.
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