Asking prices increased 5.9 percent year-over-year in January in the latest Trulia Price Monitor, an assessment of all the asking prices on the website’s listings.

Additionally, asking prices were up 0.3 percent quarter-over-quarter, 0.9 percent from December to January, and when excluding foreclosures, year-over-year gains were up 6.5 percent.

Trulia Price Monitor – It’s All About Fundamentals

Eighty-six of the nation’s 100 largest metro areas reported rising asking prices in January, and Jed Kolko, Trulia’s chief economist, said that the key to increasing asking prices will be strong market fundamentals.

“Strong job growth, low vacancy rate, and low foreclosure inventory – not huge price gains – are signs of a healthy housing market,” Kolko said. “Without strong underlying market fundamentals, price rebounds might be here today, but gone tomorrow.”

Housing markets with those attributtes, the Trulia Price Monitor found, include San Francisco, Denver and Houston, though markets such as Newark and Chicago continue to struggle, with weaker market fundamentals holding down price gains.

Piper Rothan, a Realtor with The Keyes Company in Coral Gables, said that asking prices in her market have created an interesting scenario with home sellers.

Because real estate in Miami has picked up in the last year, Rothan said local media are awash with reports on how well the market is doing – and as a result, more and more sellers are beginning to think that their home is worth more than it actually is, and are requesting higher asking prices than are appropriate.

“The sellers are getting cocky again,” Rothan said, adding that though the market is doing good, “it’s not on steroids.”

Rothan did add, though, that accurate pricing can often result in offers above that asking price, because buyers will often offer a deal $1,000-$5,000 above the asking price to secure the deal.

Rental Markets Cooling Down?

Another interesting finding in the Trulia Price Monitor was how asking rents seemed to cool down in January, at least relative to the spectacular gains of 2012. Though national asking rents did increase 4.1 percent year-over-year, that’s down from a 4.7 percent increase in July 2012; and some of the nation’s hottest rental markets showed similar declines, with San Francisco’s rents rising 2.4 percent in January, compared to 11.5 percent in July 2012.

Of course, there are outliers, with other major markets slowing less or even increasing (sometimes substantially). For instance, in Chicago, asking rents were up 4.9 percent, down just 0.3 percentage points from July, and Miami, at 9.1 percent, was down 1.1 percentage points; Houston’s rental market, though, continues to reach for the starts, increasing 15.8 percent in January – up from 8.8 percent in July 2012.