Trulia: Home prices rise, and rents rise more

The asking prices for homes are up 2.9% over last year, but rents are rising faster, even in cities where sale prices are still falling.

The latest analysis by the real-estate portal Trulia found that asking prices of homes for sale in October were 0.7% higher than in September. Year over year, 69 of the 100 metro areas tracked posted an increase in asking prices.

Rents were up 5.1% over last October, showing double-digit increases in three cities and declines in only a handful of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas.

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"Continued widespread price increases are good for homeowners but not for home-seekers," Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist, said in a news release. "In markets like Denver, San Francisco and Oakland, where prices and rents are both rising, higher prices mean higher down payments, but rising rents make it harder to save enough."

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Among the 25 largest markets, the cities showing the biggest increase in rents year over year were Houston, 16.5%; Miami, 10%; Oakland, Calif., 10%; Denver, 9.4%; and Seattle, 8.8%. They were followed by Philadelphia, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Chicago, New York and San Francisco.

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The cities showing the greatest decline in rents, among all 100 metro areas, were Richmond, Va., 3.2%; Las Vegas, 1.8%; and Little Rock, Ark., 1.3%.

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These are the cities where asking prices increased the most between October 2011 and October 2012:

• Phoenix: 24.9%
• Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.: 15.7%
• San Jose, Calif.: 12.7%
• Warren-Troy-Farmingt​on Hills, Mich.: 11.8%
• West Palm Beach, Fla.: 11.3%
• Las Vegas: 10.9%
• Denver: 10.1%
• Detroit: 9.8%
• Oakland, Calif.: 8.8%
• San Francisco: 8.7%

Most of the cities showing the greatest decrease were in the Midwest and Northeast, where foreclosures continued to drag down prices. For October, the cities showing the great decrease in prices were:

• Chicago: 5.3%
• Camden, N.J.: 4.4%
• Gary, Ind.: 3.5%
• Edison-New Brunswick, N.J.: 3.5%
• Lake County-Kenosha County, Ill.-Wis.: 3.5%
• Greenville, S.C.: 3.3%
• New Haven, Conn.: 3.3%
• Allentown, Pa.-N.J.: 3%
• Philadelphia: 2.9%
• Albuquerque, N.M.: 2.2%