After seeing home prices decline for nearly five years, one expert points to new data showing metro Atlanta prices may be headed back up.
 
"If June holds up, we could have the best average in median price in June, this year," said Steve Palm of Smart Numbers LLC. "The last time it would've been higher was August of '08 before the collapse of Lehman Brothers."
 
Palm points to data which shows the median resale price of a single family detached home in metro Atlanta will be about $185,000 this month.  The last time metro Atlanta home prices were that high was in August 2008 at about $194,000.  It's still a long way from the all-time high of $242,000 in 2006.
 
Palm believes the increase is due to historic-low home inventories. He said the inventories, combined with record-low home prices and interest rates, should lure buyers back into the market.
 
"You combine all those three, if you can afford to move up or buy a home, do it now," said Palm.  “You'll never have this opportunity ever again."
 
Palm predicted the collapse of the housing market nearly two years before it crashed and coined the phrase "Ring of Death" to refer to the exburb area around metro Atlanta so severely hit by the recession, he doesn't believe it will ever fully recover.
 
Palm does warn that the economy remains very weak so, even though he believes home prices will continue to climb slowly, he doesn't think we're out of the woods yet.