US home prices forecast to rebound 4% a year, Fiserv report says

US home prices are expected to begin rebounding this year and increase by nearly 4 percent a year for the next five years, according to a new forecast.

Fiserv, a financial analytics company, predicts that the median price for homes sold in 2012 will drop by 0.8 percent compared with 2011, but then increase 4.2 percent in 2013 and continue to gain an average of 4 percent a year in the years after that, CNN reported.

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Some areas will experience more growth than others, with 10 metro-area housing markets projected to record double-digit price increases through 2013, according to CNN.

Many house hunters have already started to pounce on bargains, and markets are also beneffiting from record-low mortgage rates, David Stiff, Fiserv's chief economist, told CNN.

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"As demand for houses ramps up, construction activity will increase and residential investment will begin to make a substantial contribution to the recovery and GDP overall," he said in a press release.

Separately, market researcher CoreLogic said Tuesday that US home prices rose 0.6 percent in March from February, the first month-over-month increase since July, USA Today reported.

According to Realtor.com, Florida has more cities than any other state that show the strongest signs of a housing recovery.

Phoenix, Miami and Orlando are the top turnaround cities in its most recent analysis of housing data, based on those markets' improvements in the first quarter compared with a year earlier.