I’ve done the numbers on the last year’s inventory for Fauquier, Culpeper and Rappahannock Counties. Now, for those of you “easterners” here are the numbers for Prince William County.

This data covers the months from February, 2006 through February 2007. The data is taken from our MLS system and includes properties residential properties listed between $100,000 and $5,000,000.

The numbers I’ve chosen to look at are the total number of active listings at the end of that month, new listings that went on the market that month, properties newly under contract that month, and properties that went to settlement that month.

MONTH	ACTIVE	NEW LISTINGS	NEW CONTRACTS	SOLD
02/06	3354	1443	637	513
03/06	4015	2078	780	699
04/06	4686	2000	681	608
05/06	5227	2042	709	661
06/06	5481	1884	647	732
07/06	5559	1616	537	567
08/06	5348	1410	529	530
09/06	5061	1267	446	470
10/06	4770	1222	479	434
11/06	4248	959	386	411
12/06	3695	710	463	457
01/07	3739	1336	474	391
02/07	3928	1172	488	360

The first thing you’ll notice is that volume is much, much larger in Prince William than in the other counties we’ve looked at. But once you get past that, the patterns stay the same with inventory peaking last summer. The numbers are a little different in Prince William in that the number of sales still seems to be declining. We’ll have to watch for a few more months to see where bottom is for this market.

The great, unchanging truth throughout all the counties is that it’s a buyer’s market. If you’ve been watching some of the numbers this week on home sales you’ve seen that reinforced at a national level. If you’re a seller, cheer up! It could be worse! I just read that in Miami, FL if you put a condo on the market to sell right now you should expect it to take three years to sell! Try planning your life around that!