The slide in local home prices doesn't appear to be over.

A local economist suggested that home prices in Hampton Roads will fall 3 to 5 percent this year.

A local real estate executive suggested that home prices will fall 10 to 15 percent.

Now, a new national forecast has suggested that the region's home prices will fall about 13 percent this year - more than in any other major metro area in the country.

In its first-ever forecast, Clear Capital, a 10-year-old real estate research company based in Truckee, Calif., looked at home prices in the nation's 50 largest metropolitan areas. It compared home prices in each region over the past 15 years with economic performance during that time.

The record level of foreclosures in Hampton Roads coupled with historically high unemployment are at the root of why Clear Capital anticipates the steep drop in home prices, said Alex Villacorta, a senior statistician at the firm. "Everything was hitting new highs, and not in a good way."

Clear Capital's conclusions are similar to those drawn by Van Rose, president of the new homes division of Rose & Womble Realty Co. In a column in the Tidewater Builders Association's magazine, Rose said he expects a 10 to 15 percent decline in prices for existing homes this year.

"There is nothing to help stop the 7 million foreclosures in the pipeline, which means values will continue to be hard to hold," Rose said of the national foreclosure problem.

Vinod Agarwal, an economist at Old Dominion University, expects local home prices to fall between 3 and 5 percent this year.

"If supply increases and demand doesn't increase, prices will fall," he said.

Yet, Agarwal hesitated to forecast a large decline in home prices this year, in part because he expects the employment market to improve.

Other local real estate executives also were reluctant to say home prices in Hampton Roads will fall much in 2011.

"In all honesty, I don't see 10 or 12 or 13 percent drop," said Ron Pearman, regional vice president for Long & Foster Real Estate. "I'm not sure if prices will fall that far, but I'm in favor of anything we can do that will stabilize our market."

The market's biggest challenge lies with the number of homes on the market and the possibility that it could rise, he said. "There's a possibility these banks will be turning loose more of their foreclosures."

Dorcas Helfant-Browning, CEO and managing partner of Coldwell Banker Professional Realtors, said some properties might see declines. "Good properties are still selling," she said.

It's difficult to get a handle on what local home prices did last year, let alone make forecasts. Figures on how much prices fell last year vary from as little as 1.5 percent to as much as 11 percent.

The reason for such a large variance is the different methods the groups use to track prices.

Real Estate Information Network, the local multiple-listing service, tracks the median price of homes in Hampton Roads. The median represents the point at which half of the sales that occurred were more expensive and half were less.

In 2010, the median price for existing homes in Hampton Roads was $203,900, down 1.5 percent from the 2009 median of $207,000.

Clear Capital tracks prices using an index based on repeat sales of the same properties, much like the Standard & Poor's Case-Shiller 20-city housing index.

According to Clear Capital, home prices in Hampton Roads fell roughly 10 percent last year. That was preceded by price declines of 3.7 percent in 2009 and 9.6 percent in 2008.

"Prices have been steadily declining since mid-2007, with prices now 24 percent below the market peak," Villacorta said.

The company developed its forecast for 2011 by comparing home prices over the past 15 years with how the overall economy was performing at the same time. Villacorta found that during years when the housing market performed well, foreclosures were negligible and unemployment was extremely low, he said.

While the housing market in some cities might perform fine when unemployment and foreclosures are high, Clear Capital's model requires that both of those elements improve in Hampton Roads before housing prices stabilize.

In Clear Capital's report, Hampton Roads was one of only eight metro areas among the 50 largest in the country to experience a double-digit percentage drop in home prices last year. One of the other eight was Richmond, which experienced a 10.2 percent decline.

While Hampton Roads was the weakest market in the company's report, Richmond's housing market was forecast to decline 2.8 percent this year - near the middle of the pack - and Washington -area home prices were forecast to have the strongest gains.

Josh Brown, (757) 446-2318, josh.brown@pilotonline.com