Stable growth in housing is predicted.

Moderate growth in housing investment, a sustained boom in remodeling, and slowly rising housing prices will be seen in the U.S. during the next five decades, according to an Oregon State University study. It contradicts some earlier predictions of a stagnant housing industry and sharp declines in prices in the next 20 years. The research also confirms that a major major shift is under way toward fixing up existing homes.

"When you consider household formation, the behavior of people matters," notes Claire Montgomery, an assistant professor in the Department of Forest Resources. "Some research reduces housing markets to simple linkages of income and population. Those are important, but housing markets are too complex to be captured in a single equation."

Some controversy about longterm housing prospects has existed since the mid 1980s, when a report suggested that low birth rates and an aging U.S. population would want the existing stock of housing only if...