Chicago homeowners could see the value of their houses drop another 5.8 percent this year – a bigger drop than the nation as a whole. That forecast comes from Clear Capital, a company that does home appraisals for big banks. Eric Landry is a housing analyst with Morningstar in Chicago. He said there’s still reason for hope that the market is starting to bottom out.

“The days of plunging housing prices, you know 20, 30 percent, are very, very far in the rear-view mirror, we’re not going to see that again,” Landry said. “There simply has not been enough new construction put in place to constitute such a scenario.”

Chicago home prices have fallen almost 30 percent since the slump began more than four years ago. Clear Capital forecasts that home prices will rise in some cities this year, including Washington, D.C., Houston and Honolulu.