Asking prices for homes on the market in the Dallas area edged higher during the first quarter.

At the same time, list prices for U.S. homes have fallen.

In the Dallas area, list prices rose an average of 2.8 percent in the first three months of 2008 while asking prices fell 1.7 percent nationally from year-end 2007, according to a report released Thursday by Altos Research Corp. and Real IQ.

"As the typically strong spring selling season gets under way, we are seeing sellers marking down prices to move their homes," Michael Simonsen, CEO and co-founder of Altos Research, said in the report.

"The seasonal inventory buildup is only going to exacerbate the near-term supply-demand imbalance and put more pressure on sellers to reduce their price expectations," he said.

But that's not happening in Texas.

Dallas and Houston – along with Charlotte, N.C. – were the only cities in Altos' latest monthly report that continued to see home listing price increases.

"My wife is from Texas, and she likes to remind me that the housing market is a whole lot better there than most other places," said Stephen Bedikian, partner and research director at California-based Real IQ. "Then comes the pitch for moving back home."

The biggest list price declines were in Las Vegas, down 5.2 percent, and San Francisco, down 5.3 percent

One reason Dallas prices have been relatively stable is that home inventories aren't rising dramatically here.

The number of homes on the market in the Dallas area rose only 0.4 percent in the first quarter, compared with a 7.4 percent jump in houses on the market in the almost two dozen U.S. cities Altos Research tracks.

In Austin, the number of homes on the market jumped more than 23 percent in the first quarter. Listings were up almost 12 percent in Seattle and Washington, D.C.

Dallas continues to have one of the shortest sales times in the country for homes on the market. In the first quarter, it took an average 83 of days to sell a home here. That compares with almost 120 days nationwide and more than 140 days in Miami and Detroit – if the home sells at all there.