The trend has been much less than 10% pa. Residential property price growth has historically been coupled to wage growth. Which makes sense, because wage earners (rather than professional speculators) have historically been the primary consumers of this good.
After accounting for rental returns, real estate has historically performed worse than the stock market, and marginally better than fixed interest (at the cost of greater volatility).
Before this current boom / bubble I carried out research on suburbs around around Perth to see what the average growth rates were over the previous 30 years and how much they varied. No big deal as the data is easily available.
It became very clear where to invest and where not to based on that information alone.
There were many areas that averaged 10% PA and greater over that 30 year period In WA that is quite a few boom and bust periods, over here we know how to cause banks to default.
There was plenty of other data available to see the trends that had been, were existing and relativity easy to project out for at 2 to 3 years or more.
I also came across plenty of long term investors that had made fortunes out of investing in property over 30 years or more. When I say plenty I am talking 100 or more people. When trying to find traders of the same magnitude I found 3 or 4.
I don't know of any other asset class where is is so much data and history available as real estate.
Will house prices to stagnate for years?
There will be areas that will certainly stagnate look at the historical data there always has been always will be except in booms which for some illogical reason some believe thats normal.
Like wise there will always be areas both locality and types that will continue to rise.
Extraordinarily it requires some mentoring, miles of research, and plenty of time and effort to find and exploit.
My advice to any would be investor is forget the stock market, solely concentrate on property based on probability your chance of success are far greater IMHO.
I invested in property 5 to 6 years ago and made a basic mistake of continuing to invest enormous amounts of time on trading markets instead of solely focusing on property. Although I make an income from trading my property investments is where my real wealth is made.
Focus