After enduring a multiyear decline, the values of most homes in the Chicago area may finally increase slightly by the middle of 2011. Or so says a detailed national forecast issued this past fall by Fiserv, a Wisconsin-based financial services company. According to the report, home prices in the metropolitan region defined as Chicago-Naperville-Joliet will increase by 0.7 percent in the year ending June 30, 2011. Elsewhere, in the area that encompasses Lake County, Illinois, and Kenosha County, Wisconsin, prices will decline by 0.4 percent in that same period—an improvement over the 2.2 percent decline anticipated there for the year ending June 30, 2010. Though relatively flat, both numbers indicate that a stable housing recovery is on the horizon locally, says David Stiff, Fiserv’s chief economist. “Chicago is heading toward a period of flat prices more quickly than other parts of the United States because it didn’t participate in the [real-estate] bubble as much.”

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