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!

I got an e-mail a couple of days ago from Pulte Homes regarding their White's Mill development in Warrenton. They're nearing the end of the development and have 7 homes either completed or nearing completion. The e-mail was to make me aware of the deals available to me with these 7 homes.

According to the e-mail the homes each include free finished basements, free granite countertops, upgraded cabinetry and free hardwood flooring. The prices start at $479,900.

And, if you're one of dozens of homeowners having trouble selling your own home in order to buy theirs, they'll give you six months without mortgage payments! Oh, and, by the way, their paying 4% commission to the buyer's agent!

This brings us back to that same old discussion about the downward pressure on prices in this market. If the builders will sell you a new house that includes all of the above for $479,900 and assure you of no mortgage payments for six months, it becomes much harder to sell your almost new house in that same price range where the basement isn't finished.

Let's get specific. In White's Mill as I write this there are 7 homes listed in the MLS as currently for sale. Two of those are part of the seven that Pulte still owns. That leaves five other owners competing against that offer we just talked about.

Only one has a finished basement. True, some of them are brick fronts, but they're also listed for considerably more money. The lowest priced listing in this development right now is a home owned by the builder listed for $490,000. The most expensive is listed at $635,000.

Some of these homes have no hardwood other than the foyer, an unfinished basement and they're still asking mid $500s. Of course, when you paid about $600K it feels like you've come down more than enough on your asking price!

Builders are looking to clear inventory! They'll do what they need to in order to make that happen. Unlike the typical homeowner they're unsentimental about either the home or the listing price!

So...if you're a homeowner in this subdivision and you absolutely have to sell now, how do you compete with the builder? Price is probably you're only weapon and it's a bad one in this situation. This looks like war and one side seems likely to lose badly. If you're in this subdivision I'd be looking to rent my house out and bide my time for a couple of years if there was any way at all to make that work.

If you're a buyer, count your blessings!

Lake Whippoorwill subdivision is located in Fauquier county on the DC side of Warrenton. There are approximately 130 homes here, almost entirely made up of colonials on large lots.

There are currently six homes for sale here. The prices range from $499,900 to $599,900. Actually, four of the six are listed for $599,900! The most recent listing has been for sale for 12 days. The longest any of these have been on the market is 323 days.

Eight homes have sold here in the last year. For those of you who have been following the subdivision market reports here, you'll notice this makes this the best we've looked at in terms of inventory. There is about 9 months worth of inventory for sale here. That's a vast improvement over any of the northern Culpeper county subdivisions we've looked at. One caveat, however. There are an additional 5 homes that have been for sale over this one year period and were withdrawn from the market and have never sold. Assuming the owners still wish to sell these homes this pushes the inventory to over a year's supply and more in line with the overall numbers for Fauquier county as a whole.

The longest it's taken anything to sell is 405 days. The shortest amount of time it's taken any home to sell is 11 days. The highest net sales price in the last year was $689,999. The lowest net sales price was $480,000. Homes have sold for an average of 96% of the final list price. There is clear evidence of the falling area prices here as the last two homes that have sold were the two that sold for the lowest prices.

Based on what the two most recent sales were here (net of $480,000 and $536,625) it is likely that further price reductions will be necessary to move the inventory here.

Again, feel free to share your comments, insights and perceptions if for no other reason than it will help my blogging class!

Thanks!

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!

As I'm sure you're well aware, there was a heck of a wind storm earlier this week. We saw trees down everywhere and many lost power. But hopefully most of you didn't lose what the owners of these houses did:

In case you're wondering that is not normal! Even in a strong wind storm you shouldn't see siding stripped away like that.  I've driven around a lot of neighborhoods since the storm went through. This is the only neighborhood with this kind of damage on multiple homes.

But you know what? A month from now when buyers come through they won't have a clue that this happened. They won't know that they should be asking questions about the quality of the construction.

So, if you're out looking at homes, always ask who the builder was. I'd recommend talking to a few of the neighbors and see how they feel about the quality of construction in their homes. And, if you're a buyer, immediately after a storm is a great time to explore neighborhoods and see how the storms affected the homes there.

One home with damage doesn't mean shoddy construction. But if there's a pattern in a particular subdivision all built by the same builder, it's worth some further investigation!

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!