At a national level, the housing market is on the mend, but recovery will be slow this year with little overall change, according to the latest quarterly VeroFORECAST report released Thursday by ""Veros Real Estate Solutions."":http://www.veros.com/
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""The good news is that many markets are no longer expected to be radically declining, said Eric Fox, VP of statistical and economic modeling at Veros.
""We continue to be consistent in saying that the recovery will be a lengthy and gradual one,"" he said.
Throughout 2012, Veros expects the strongest markets to experience a 4 percent price increase and the weakest markets to experience 5 percent to 6 percent decreases.
The strongest markets are located in the Great Plains and include North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Texas, and Louisiana.
Fargo and Bismark, North Dakota are projected to see the greatest appreciation over the year, rising 3.5 percent and 3.3 percent respectively.
North Dakota is particularly well positioned for price appreciation due to its low unemployment rate of 3.4
[COLUMN_BREAK]percent as of November, according to the ""Bureau of Labor Statistics."":http://bls.gov/
This contrasts the national unemployment rate for the month of November, which was calculated at 8.6 percent. (""December unemployment data,"":http://dsnews.comarticles/unemployment-rate-falls-to-85-2012-01-06 released Friday, shows a 0.1 percent drop from November to December.)
North Dakota's rising population and strong oil and agriculture business also position it well for price appreciation.
The Washington D.C. area is expected to see the next highest price appreciation at 2.9 percent. In addition to favorable employment opportunities, the area is experiencing its lowest housing supply inventory in five years.
In contrast to North Dakota's low unemployment rate, Bakersfield, California, is experiencing an unemployment rate of 15.1 percent.
Amid continually high foreclosure and delinquency rates, Bakersfield tops Veros' list of projected price depreciation at 6.8 percent.
Reno-Sparks, Nevada, follows with a projected price depreciation of 5.7 percent.
Between these extremes, Alaska and Hawaii are continuing to see improvement in prices with Honolulu and Anchorage rounding out Veros' projected list of five strongest markets.
Florida and Arizona markets remain weak but are seeing some improvement.
""Miami is forecast to see flat prices in the next 12 months, which is far better than the 10 percent depreciation of the recent past,"" Fox said.