• Robert Shiller says he sees enough things weighing on the U.S. economy now and presenting risks that house prices can have only modest growth for the near future.
• A large student-loan debt burden, 15 years of flat incomes for many people in terms of buying power and about half of homeowners being stuck where they are because of equity erosion dim his outlook. He adds the dangers posed by the European economy's ongoing ills and by the risk that dysfunctional Washington will provoke a budget crisis.
• "It seems to me that a plausible forecast is, given our inability to do stimulus now, for Japan-like slow growth for the next five years in the economy. Therefore, if there is an increase in home prices, it's modest," Shiller told CNBC.

From the article:

The worst U.S. housing crisis since the Great Depression has been declared over. But is it?

What some of Wall Street's forecasts for a recovery may be underestimating are tectonic shifts in the U.S. economy that make the housing market a different place from a decade ago. ...