It's true that double-digit appreciation won't be back for a while. But there are 2 places, it seems to me, where growth has been exploding for two decades and will likely continue: Las Vegas and Phoenix suburbs. At some point the sprawl will be contained either through boundaries like Indian reservations (to the south of Phx) or simply too great of a distance from jobs to make people's commutes worthwhile -- which will jack up prices in places where people have already built, which means even more appreciation for home values.
The big negative here is that these are cities in the desert, and if drought keeps going (a real possibility), then there might not be the natural resources there much longer that would sustain the population, which of course would mean people selling and moving out and losing a lot on their real estate investments.
