The official June numbers have been released for this area of Virginia. Let's take a look, by county, at what they have to tell us.

First, Culpeper County. Compared to a year ago, inventory is down (732 now vs. 784 then). New contracts written have jumped (61 now vs. 47 then) and we see the same thing with solds (57 vs, 31). It's all good news! The only thing we see that isn't positive is that we're still adding new listings at a faster clip than I'd like. There were 130 new listings in June, compared to 113 a year ago. Still, when you look at year over year numbers, this is some of the best news we've seen in awhile.

Fauquier county presents a more mixed picture. The great news is Fauquier is inventory. A year ago we were looking at 865 homes on the market. Now we're down to 753. That's a 13% reduction in inventory. Good news! And the trend seems likely to continue. There were 128 new listings this month compared to 171 a year ago. The mixed part is the number of contracts and sales. There were 61 new contracts written this month compared to 65 a year ago. And 67 homes sold compared to 65 a year ago. Those aren't terrible numbers, but they're not telling as good a story as the other numbers.

Prince William County is where things are really hopping! This is the best news of any jurisidiction. And it follows the nationwide trend of this housing recovery happening closer to urban centers. Inventory is down from a year ago (5501 vs. 5703). But look at the contracts written and the number of solds! 987 new contracts were written in June. Compare that to last June when there were only 454. That's an increase of over 100%. And the solds tell a similar story. The numbers in June were 834 vs. 456 a year ago. The number of new listings is also decreasing 1448 now vs. 1539 in 2007. There's not a spec of bad news to be found in Prince William! Anecdotal evidence supports this. There are numerous examples of not only quick sales, but multiple offers on the most attractively priced properties.

Rappahannock remains in its own little world! Inventory is up from 79 to 85. New listings are almost identical to a year ago (17 now, 16 then). New contracts are down from 7 a year ago to 4 now.  Solds are exactly the same at 4. In other words things remain much the same in Rappahannock County.

This is the most positive report I've seen in a long time. There's no way to look at these numbers and not be optimistic.  I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that in Prince William County they may have seen the bottom. We won't know for sure until at least 6 months from now, but it's possible.

By the way, if you're a seller that doesn't mean you can raise your price! The properties priced CORRECTLY FOR THE MARKET are selling. There are still plenty of them sitting there!

There are a lot of sellers sitting out there wondering whether to try and sell now or to hold off, at least until spring, in the hopes of seeing a better market then.

There's some data to suggest you might as well bite the bullet and do it now. The S&P/Case-Shiller index of home prices shows that the last real estate downturn, in the late 80s and early 90s, it took about seven years for the market to recover enough the prices began to rise again.

We're only a couple of years into this one. And, this downturn may play out differently. There are certainly plenty of interested parties, especially in an election year, who would like there to be some good news on the real estate front. But it seems unlikely that two years or maybe even three will be enough to move us back to rising prices given the amount of inventory out there.

And, you'll see an increase in the number of homes selling, I suspect, long before you see that begin to push up the prices of those homes.

So, if you're wondering whether to put your house on the market now or wait for the spring market the answer is that it probably makes very little difference in terms of the price you'll get for your home. What you should consider is that, as in most years, I expect the inventory to jump tremendously in the spring and the competition for the buyers will be much fiercer.

Maybe the real question is how will your home fare against the increased competition?