Report: Home prices to remain stable through 2011

A report from the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business says that home prices will likely remain stable throughout 2011 - without gaining or losing much value - as the economy continues relatively stagnant growth.

Economists at the school said that home buyers have so far failed to take up the nation's oversupply of homes, which will keep the market from picking up rapidly.

"We built too many houses and saved too little," said Erik Hurst, a professor of economics at Chicago Booth. "This misallocation needs to undo itself before the economy can return to normal growth. We need to work through the inventory of extra houses, accumulate additional saving, and reallocate workers and capital from the housing and finance sectors to other sectors. This process just takes time."

Economists at the school also predicted that hiring would be slow to pick up, and that the national unemployment rate would remain higher than 8.5 percent through the next year.

Other reports have made similar home price forecasts for the Houston real estate market. A study by the data firm Fiserv last month predicted that prices in the Houston real estate market would slide by just 0.3 percent next year before bouncing back in 2012.