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!

I'm a little late getting March's numbers out to you all. Blame the IRS! But now that taxes are done, it's time to dive into the numbers and take a look. I haven't done individual posts by county for awhile so I'll be doing that over the course of the next few days.

Today it's Culpeper.

The biggest difference between February and March is the number of new listings coming on the market. Last month there were 206 new listings. This month there were only 142 new listings. That would seem to be helpful to the total amount of inventory on the market but there's only a slight difference (February: 819, March: 802). The other notable difference is the number of sales which increased from 31 in February to 42 in March.

Those numbers are interesting, but the more interesting comparison is with what happened a year ago. Remember, real estate is very seasonal. Spring markets are very different from fall or winter markets. The best comparison is almost always year over year changes.

In March of 2007, a year ago, the total inventory was only 643, as opposed to the 802 we've got now. The number of new listing taken were 145, almost identical to the number in March of 2008, 142. The number of new contracts was also very similar, 54 last year, 53 this year. The biggest difference is the number of closed sales. That number was 52 in March of 2007 and 42 in March of 2008.

Year over year it's hard to see any signs that this market is turning around.

Prices continue to drop. Average sales price in Culpeper county a year ago was $328,013. The average sales price now is $288,017. That's a 12% drop in one year. That's significant. There's no sign that prices are stabilizing either.

One statistic that surprised me is that the total number of new construction listings are up. As more and more builders have slowed or stopped building, I expected a reduction in new construction listings. But a year ago there were 224 new construction properties listed and now there are 263.

But perhaps even more surprising is the number of new construction sales. 12 sold in March of 2007 and only 4 in 2008. Considering the terrific deals most builders are providing, that's surprising. If you're ever going to buy new construction, the deals out there right now may make this the time.

Overall, there's not much here to raise your hopes if you're a seller. Lots of continued good news for the buyers!

There's lots of talk out there about what's happening in the housing market.  But let's look at some hard numbers for some of the local jurisdictions.

As you can see, Fauquier County has been hit substantially harder than surrounding areas. I don't have Culpeper numbers right now, but I would speculate that they are worse than Culpeper. John McClain, senior fellow at the center for Regional Analysis, George Mason University says we've taken the brunt of this because of the large percentage of new construction on the market here. When existing homes are competing against that much new construction and the upgrades being offered for free often add up to $50K or more, existing homes lose!

The good news is that some of that inventory is starting to be absorbed. With numbers this low, I believe we will not see substantial continued decreases in prices, at least in the outlying counties.  But don't hold your breath for a quick rebound either! There are still a lot of empty new homes out there!

Toll Brothers came out with earnings reports today that looked pretty ugly! Their net income feel 44% last quarter. And their forward predictions weren't all sunshine and daffodils either! Now, I'd be the first to say that doesn't sound like news.  We've heard one bad news story after another in the housing sector. Everybody's earnings look terrible!

But the interesting thing today is that Toll Brothers stock actually went up after their press conference. The market wasn't looking at last quarter, it was looking at what Toll Brothers was saying. And what they said is that they believe they're seeing the bottom in some markets. Most notably for us they specifically mentioned the DC/Northern VA area as one of the places they're seeing that bottom. That would be terrific news!

It should be noted that seeing a bottom does not indicate a big rebound to what we were seeing a couple of years ago. In fact, it doesn't indicate price increases are in the works at all. But if it's true, it would mean an end to falling prices in the near future. It would mean buyers would be a little more comfortable buying again. And these are all very good things!

The question here is how reliable is what Toll Brothers is saying. And it's hard to know. Certainly they have a reason to want to be optimistic for the sake of a higher stock price. But companies who mislead the markets typically get hammered later and most reputable companies don't want to risk that by puffing up their estimates. In fact, often a company would prefer to downplay future expectations.

So, there is reason to be optimistic there. And a little optimism in December never hurt anyone!