The numbers for October are out. And, overall, they don't show a tremendous amount of change. The total number of solds remain low. In most counties the number of new listings was up. But the overall inventory showed a very slight decrease almost everywhere.

Clearly the inventory decrease has to be due to something other than houses being sold. Some of the homes were taken off the market. A lot of them were rented as that market remains much healthier than the market for sales.

The brightest spot in all of this is that the number of contracts written spiked up a fair amount this month. And that bears out the anecdotal evidence I've seen and heard. We've known there's some pent up demand out there. At least some of those buyers have made the decision that this is the time. I'm guessing a lot of them would like to be in their new homes for Christmas.

I'm also receiving an increasing number of inquiries from buyers who want to start looking now but don't intend to buy until the spring. I'm hoping that what I'm seeing there is also part of a larger trend.

Over the next couple of days, I'll post the detailed charts with the numbers for Culpeper, Fauquier, Rappahannock and Prince William Counties. If you have a special request for the inventory for another county, e-mail me or post a comment here and I'll get you the information. I have the data for just about every county in the northern half of Virginia.

Bottom line on all the data is that there's a little bit of increased activity and still a long way to go to get this inventory back to a manageable level!

Sellers finally got some good news locally this week. Centex announced that they are cancelling plans to build Freedom Place in Bealeton. It was going to be a 350 unit development and it DEFINITELY was NOT needed!

Listening to some of the comments from some county officials you'd think someone had made off with the family silver! This is another example of county officials paying more attention to big builders and developers than to their own local taxpayers. They should have been sending big bouquets of flowers to Centex along with a thank you note!

The truth is that when the housing market turns around the big builders and developers will be back knocking on the county's door, wanting to do business. But right now, local builders can easily fill the demand for new construction, assuming there's still a gap after you consider all the unsold new construction still sitting here! And local homeowners who are trying to sell their homes in a miserably soft market definitely don't need more competition from builders!

The announcement by Centex this week is a huge help for homeowners in both Fauquier and Culpeper counties. It protects the value of your home. Considering that we're still likely facing oodles of foreclosures hitting the market in the next year, this is very, very welcome news. You might want to get out those thank you notes and start writing!

There's news on the economic front today that sheds light on the housing market.

The first news is the existing home sales for March. The numbers show a drop of 8.4% over February's numbers. This is the largest drop in 18 years, taking us back to the really ugly real estate market of 1989.

The second piece of economic data just out is the consumer confidence numbers. The number declined for the second month in a row. Much of the reason for the decline seemed to have to do with gas prices at the pump. And that is certainly a factor in our local housing market.

Remember that these are national numbers. Real estate is local, local, local! Our solds actually increased here, March over February. That's true in every county I looked at in the area. That includes, Fauquier, Culpeper, Prince William, Warren and even little Rappahannock! That's the good news. The bad news is that we're down year over year and inventory once again increased in March.

The other interesting thing about these numbers on a national level is that there are a number of analysts saying that the numbers were down in March because of bad weather in February. Since our February was really ugly from a weather perspective and we still managed higher numbers in March, I'm a little cynical about that explanation!

Before we get started can I just say that I like good housing news as much as the next guy, and probably more! I'm looking for it, I swear I am. The numbers just aren't cooperating!

March numbers are in for the local markets and they're not pretty.

Culpeper shows that total inventory increased to 643. The number of new listings coming on the market increased from 91 in February to 145 in March. Meanwhile there were 54 new contracts ratified and 52 sales closed.

In Fauquier the inventory is up to 723. 212 new listings came on the market in March, up from 135 in February. 94 new contracts were ratified and 62 sales closed.

In Rappahannock, as usual, there's less variation. There are 66 properties currently for sale. 10 new properties came on the market in March, 3 less than in February. Three listings went under contract and 5 sales closed.

In Prince William county the inventory is now 4527. 1764 new listings came on the market in March compared to 1172 in February. 508 new contracts were ratified and there were 418 closed sales.

Inventory is back up to right around October/November, 2006 levels.

In other not good news this week, D R Horton, a major national homebuilder announced spectacularily bad financials again as well as a warning that they see the market weakness continuing for the next three quarters.

OK, clearly the bright spot here is for the buyers! And I'm very happy for them and it was definitely their turn!

Sellers, if there's a bright spot here it's that it is absolutely crystal clear that you shouldn't be selling if you don't need to! How's that for finding that silver lining!

You're turn to tell me about all the good news you're seeing out there!

It's time to take a close up look at the South Wales subdivision in Jeffersonton in northwest Culpeper County.

There are currently 18 homes for sale here. The low price is $450,000 and the highest priced is $599,900. The days on market ranges from just under two weeks to well over two years.

During the last year 10 properties sold. That means that at current sales rates there is enough inventory to last almost two years. If you put your home on the market today and everything currently on the market had to sell before yours did you could plan on selling yours in early spring of 2009!

The lowest price anything sold for in the last year in this subdivision was $375,000. The highest price anything sold for was $635,000. On average the sales price, including incentives was 97% of the final list price.  The fastest anything sold was in 9 days. The longest anything was on the market (and sold) was 277 days.

Twelve homes over the course of the past year have either been withdrawn from the market or the listing has expired. None of those homes have yet been sold. That means in addition to the 18 currently on the market there are 12 more owners who want to sell.

One more factor that doesn't show up in any statistics is the talk about Dominion's proposed new power lines. Since they would follow the current right of way through South Wales there is some uncertainty about what will happen regarding this proposal and what the ultimate effect will be on the homes here. Uncertainty in an already slow market has a tendency to make buyers move on. While we can't measure this effect, it could be impacting home sales here to some extent.

What should you expect if you live in South Wales? You should expect price reductions! If everyone who wanted to sell had their house currently on the market there would be three years worth of inventory.  While spring and summer is typically peak buying season, there are nowhere near enough buyers out there to absorb this kind of inventory.

Again, if you don't have to sell, your home should not be on the market in these conditions. If you do have to sell, you will need to make sure your home is in great condition and will have to price it aggressively.

Sometimes getting more specific about market conditions in individual subdivisions can be an easier way to understand the current market. When you're talking about an entire county and hundreds or even thousands of homes it can sometimes be a little overwhelming. And, of course, real estate is very, very local! Things in one subdivision can be sitting for many months with no activity while another subdivision shows everything moving in less than 90 days.

With that in mind, I decided to take a look at Wildwood Forest. It's a relatively small subdivision, approximately 90 homes, in Amissville in the northwest corner of Culpeper County.

Eight homes have sold in this subdivision in the past year.  The last one sold in September of last year, over 6 months ago. The lowest net price any property sold for was $355,000. The highest net price anything sold for was $508,270. The sold for, on average, 96.5% of their final list price.

During this year period, there were 25 properties listed for sale. Eight of them sold. Three of them remain on the market and the remaining 14 were eventually withdrawn.

Given the rate at which properties are currently selling, there's enough supply here currently for four and a half months. Basically, what that means is that if homes continue to sell at the same frequency they have been selling in this subdivision, and nothing new goes on the market here, it will take four and a half months for current inventory to be sold off.

The fastest anything sold was in 5 days. The longest anything was on the market was 1327 days and that one never did sell. If you throw out the 1327 DOM property (since it seriously skews the results) you get an average days on market of about 90. That actually puts this subdivision ahead of most of Culpeper County.

The three properties currently for sale here range in price from $459,000 to $499,900. Given that nothing's sold in here for six months and that the last sale in here was for $459,900, and given that prices, in general, over that period have fallen, it's entirely possible that current prices are slightly inflated.

I'd be interested to know if you find this kind of analysis interesting and if any of you study specific subdivisions in this level of detail.