WASHINGTON — The U.S. housing industry is in for a sustained decline, though signs of a cool-down have been slower to emerge than previously expected, according to the quarterly UCLA Anderson Forecast released yesterday.

The widely respected forecasting center at UCLA said rising interest rates, slowing population growth, overbuilding and the fact that prices had reached bubble-like heights in some areas will drive the decline. Housing, which had been a big driver of growth, is contributing little to the economic expansion at present, the forecast said.

While a sharper slowdown in housing will hurt the broader economy, it is not expected to push it into recession, the economists said.

"The remaining questions are how hard the fall will be and when it will begin," Michael Bazdarich, senior economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast, said in a report. "The recent anecdotal evidence suggests the decline may be beginning. We'll soon see for sure," he said. Previously, UCLA Anderson Forecast economists had predicted that housing construction would begin to slow in mid-2005, a projection it later pushed back to early 2006.

There are signs that the market has begun to cool, including a decline in existing home sales and softening prices for home-builder stocks. But Bazdarich said it was "still too early to call the turn."