I'm going to take a moment today to acknowledge that this is my 400th blog post here! I've enjoyed every minute of it and have learned more than I would have thought possible!

It's been fun hearing from you. All of you are the reason this blog exists. The purpose remains the same now as it was at post number one. This is here to give you, the consumer, more access to information on real estate in general and on the Fauquier (Warrenton), Culpeper, Prince William, Rappahannock and Warren county real estate market.

The occasion of the 400th post is prompting some reflection and analysis and watch for some adjustments going forward that will hopefully make this blog even more relevant.

And, because I wanted today's post to have an upbeat feel, here's an article on what I believe is ultimately a very positive sign for the real estate market overall. Work outs for troubled mortgages have not been happening in anywhere near he numbers they need to. This points to better systems and processes to make that happen.

And, one more milestone occurs later this week. Next weekend I'll turn 50!

YeeHaw!

There's lots to talk about today.

Saturday, in Warrenton, is the third annual Alternative Energy Expo. It runs from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Fauquier County Fairgrounds. Admission is $5. If you've been thinking about making your home and/or your life more "green" this is a great place to get ideas, talk to people who can help and get inspired! It's bigger and better than ever this year!

Most of you should have received in your mailboxes this week a circular called "Northern Piedmont - Buy Fresh - Buy Local". The Piedmont Environmental Council sent this to residents of Culpeper, Fauquier, Orange, Madison and Rappahannock counties. In it you'll find a guide to buying almost everything you eat locally from produce to meat, from farmers markets to CSAs to buying right on the farm. Great publication!

The WSJ has run a couple of very interesting real estate articles this week. First up was an article called "As Dues Dry Up, The Neighbors Pay" about how as no one is paying the HOA dues on vacant/foreclosed houses, other homeowners are having to swallow large increases in dues. It's another things buyers need to take a careful look at prior to buying.

The other article in WSJ was "Will Upgrading Your Home Help You Sell It?" and the results are clearly mixed. In a declining market I'd always argue that while you want your house to shine, you should never put in expensive upgrades. This article has some interesting details.

The April numbers are finalized.  I did a sneak preview for you about ten days ago, before the numbers were official. And, the picture hasn't changed much.

In every county, the pattern is the same. Inventory has risen again, as has the number of new listings. After a dismal month in terms of sales in March, April looks better, both in terms of new contracts written and sales closed. But the number of houses sold is not keeping pace with the new listings coming on the market.

Fauquier, Culpeper are each showing about 16 months of inventory. Warren is looking worse at 24 months. Prince William is in the best shape at only 9 months. Rappahannock, being a special place, has about 3 years worth of inventory. But, again, the numbers generally don't give a very realistic picture of Rappahannock.

The more interesting comparison, of course, is year over year. Since real estate is very seasonal, that's always true. In general, inventory is higher than it was a year ago and sales are slower. There are some exceptions, but it's too soon to say if those are a blip or a true change in market conditions.

No bottom in sight would be my reading of current conditions. There is nothing to suggest we've turned a corner. (Although I remain hopeful that I'm wrong!)

There are many wonderful things about living in this rural paradise that I call home. Easy and cheap availability of high speed internet access would not number among them!

But the options are increasing and since this is a topic that's almost always of interest to potential buyers in this area, I thought it rated a blog post.

DSL and cable are most people's first choice for high speed internet. Unfortunately, both are difficult to find out here. DSL is the rarer of the two. Cable is available in most of the villages such as Flint Hill and Washington in Rappahannock County. You'll find cable available in some of the larger subdivisions such as South Wales, Quail Ridge or Wildwood Forest.

Broadband wireless cards are good in certain areas. I recently tried Sprint's card, which is supposed to have good coverage in Rappahannock County and had no success at all from my house. A neighbor about two miles down the road from my house has terrific access using the same card.

VABB (Virginia Broadband) has some installations in the county. They provide high speed wireless connectivity using radio frequency technology. Your ability to use them will vary depending on your proximity to one of their towers and the site line.

The most widely available solution is satellite. We're currently using HughesNet at  our home in Amissville. It's expensive, but customer service and connectivity (outside of heavy thunderstorms and snowfalls) has been very good. While it's technically high speed, it does not rival what you experience with DSL or cable. And the price is very high compared to other alternatives.

If this is an important issue to you, make sure you ask about this BEFORE you buy your house! Many people now depend on high speed access to work remotely. The options available to you will vary depending on which house you choose. Each county has their own challenges. As with most things related to buying a house, do your homework!

Saturday's Washington Post carried a story about foreclosure activity that primarily looked at Prince William county. As the story makes clear, things are pretty bad in Prince William County. The number quoted in the article is that 5.5% of the homes in the county are in some phase of foreclosure.

I took a look at RealtyTrac, a web site that specializes in providing foreclosure listings. It shows 3204 homes in Prince William County in foreclosure out of 5573 homes currently listed for sale. It says an additional 881 homes are in pre-foreclosure. And 1932 homes are up for auction. Some of those auctioned homes are likely to be foreclosures, although certainly not all of them.

To give you a feel for the rest of the area, Culpeper County has 137 properties in foreclosure, 20 pre-foreclosure and 97 up for auction. That's out of 819 listings.

Fauquier County has 111 foreclosures, 2 pre-foreclosures and 93 properties up for auction out of 730 listings.

Rappahannock County has 4 foreclosures, 0 pre-foreclosures and 6 properties to be auctioned.

Warren County has 0 foreclosures according to RealtyTrac, although I seriously doubt their data on this county. There are 4 in pre-foreclosure and 73 listings to be auctioned.

I've got February's market numbers. I'll give you the scoop on Culpeper, Fauquier, Rappahannock, Prince William and Warren Counties. If anyone is interested in information on any other counties, contact me and I'll be happy to provide.

In general, what we're seeing across the board is a jump in inventory. This being March, that's not a surprise at all. The increase in inventory will continue for the next several months.

In three out of the five counties the number of closed sales was flat. Rappahannock had one sale in both January and February. Warren had 22 each month. And Fauquier actually fell from 33 in January to 32 in February. As I said, flat.

Prince William showed a huge increase in the number of contracts written, from 498 in January to 698 in February. This may have something to do with the steeper price drops we've seen in that market. They may have finally broken the stalemate between buyers looking for a deal and sellers determined to hang on to every dime of equity they can, even if it means not selling!

Warren showed a nice increase in contracts, up by about 25% from last month. Rappahannock went from 0 last month to 1 this month.  Culpeper was up just slightly from 47 written last month to 51 written this month. Fauquier actually fell from 53 to 44.

Most of the counties are sitting at around 2 years worth of inventory on the market right now. Prince William is an exception with only about 16 months of inventory. The numbers for Rappahannock are pretty meaningless, but if you're interested the math shows a 70 month supply!

Across the board prices are still falling. And, I expect that to continue throughout 2008. This will vary a lot by neighborhood. In some neighborhoods, you may see some stabilization. In some neighborhoods, there's still a lot of adjustment needed. I'd be shocked if anyone found a single neighborhood where prices increase over the next year.

That's the scoop for February! If anyone needs me to dig deeper into any of these numbers I'm happy to help. Just send me an e-mail.

The January numbers are out and there's more good news to report. This is starting to feel and look like more than an anomaly. (Knock on wood!) But there are still danger signs as well. Let's talk about all of it.

Culpeper county continues to see inventories decline. Actually across the board we're seeing declines, but perhaps most significantly in Culpeper. This is the lowest we've seen inventory in a year. And, while closed sales were down in January, the number of contracts written more than doubled. A good sign going forward. Given how busy I am with both buyers and sellers the past couple of weeks, I believe we'll see an increase in contracts again in January.

Here's the bad news; new listing jumped back up. New listings in December were 91. New listings last month were 161. Year over year, we're holding steady. In January of '07 we saw 165 new listings. Expect that number to increase again in February. Again, my personal experience with new listings coming up would seem to confirm that.

In Fauquier we saw many of the same trends, but dialed down. Inventory decreased very slightly, from 703 to 699. Inventory still remains above where we were a year ago. As in Culpeper, sales were down, contracts were up. New listings jumped significantly. By the way, this is not unusual. Especially in a tough market, it makes a lot of sense to beat your competition to market. And the spring will likely see a flood of new inventory.

In Prince William all the above trends hold with no significant differences.

Warren County is clearly still struggling. Inventory is down only slightly. New listings increased almost threefold and while new contracts increased, it was not by much. 

Rappahannock County seems to be looking a little more anemic right now. But the volumes are so tiny in Rappahannock that you'd be in sane to try and determine trends from such scanty data. There were no new contracts written and only one sale last month. Inventory decreased very slightly and the number of new listings doubled from the month before.  It'll be interesting to see how the spring market unfolds here.

So, let's see what the increased activity I'm seeing now does to these numbers next month!

The real estate market was front page on the Washington Post again yesterday. And, there are a couple of interesting lines that say a lot about our local market here.

2007 is behind us and the December numbers are now available. And there's plenty of good news. In every county I looked at, inventory continued to decline. Culpeper moved down to 783 homes for sale. It was at 796 last month. And, at its high hit 823.

Culpeper is representative of the surrounding counties. Rappahannock, Prince William, Fauquier, even Warren, all saw reductions in inventory. I'd like to say it's a trend, but given the circumstances it's still too early to say that. November and December in an average year will see a reduction in inventory as people take their homes off the market during the holidays. If January and February numbers continue to show a decrease I'll officially declare a trend!

We also saw fewer new listings across the board. Again, good news if it continues. With spring coming this is one I think we can safely say is not a trend. That's especially true if we look at year over year numbers. A comparison between December '06 and December '07 shows a sizeable increase in the number of new listings.

The number of new contracts and solds was down across almost every county with the exception of Prince William. That may have something to do with the fact that Prince William is showing some of the most aggressive price cutting.

I also compared the new contracts and solds to a year ago. In Culpeper we're significantly lower, in Fauquier close to breaking even. And, while Prince William is up month over month, it's down year over year.

All in all, December was a mixed bag. As with most statistics, we'll have a better idea what they mean a year from now!

Technology is a constantly changing thing. And it certainly continues to impact how real estate is bought and sold.

Because technology is so important to how I run my business, I'm continually evaluating what's effective and what isn't and how I can best provide information to the public.

Given that, I've made the decision to discontinue my traditional web site and focus purely on this blog. I'm getting better feedback on the usefulness of the information here than on my original web site. And it's become impossible from a time perspective to keep that continually updated and to post high quality blogs on a regular basis.

So, watch for changes here! I'll be adding some categories and moving a lot of the information from my web site here. I'll be adding a category for listings and displaying that information here. If there are some hiccups in switching everything over, I apologize for those now!

Meanwhile, I'm hopeful that these changes will allow me to continually improve what I can offer you here. As always your suggestions are warmly welcomed and eagerly solicited!

I know sellers are waiting anxiously for how February numbers look.  And while it's too early to have all the data, here are two quick items to make you feel a little better!

Overall inventory fell this month from 1903 to 1793. These numbers cover Fauquier, Culpeper, Madison, Orange and Rappahannock counties. I can't tell you yet how much of this is attributable to new contracts and how much is attributable to the wintery weather that plagued us for much of the month.

There's also good news on the interest rate front with rates falling again this week for the second week in a row! That's good news for buyers and sellers!

Stay tuned to this space for more data as it becomes available!

Occasionally I try to focus on a local business in this space. And last week I had the pleasure of meeting with Lance Huber from The Tool Box. He's local here in Rappahannock County and he does some amazing work.

The Tool Box is primarily a handyman service. And every homeowner knows how hard it can be to find a good, reliable, reasonably priced handyman! Lance fits the bill on all counts. Whether it's drywall repair, doors that need adjusting or minor electrical and plumbing jobs, he's done it all.

Now all of that is pretty impressive because it's so rare to be able to find someone who even shows up when they say they will! But I'm even more impressed with the woodworking that Lance does.

The above photograph illustrates some of the more formal furnishings that Lance has done. But that's not all he's produced.

Pieces like this garden bench are more whimsical. I love this piece!

And this "rooster chalet" is a remarkable, totally unique work of art!

His work has been featured and sold all over the world. And it's wonderful to have such a treasure right here in Rappahannock County!

If you'd like to contact Lance either for his handyman services or to purchase some of his woodworking skills you can give him a call at 540-937-3332.

I haven't yet written about the proposed Dominion Power lines that were slated to run across northern Fauquier County. And, now they've changed the plan.

Apparently tired of the local opposition, the bad press and the lawsuits, they've decided to move the route south, where it will no go through southern Fauquier, Culpeper and Rappahannock Counties.

I've been skeptical from the beginning about this line. First of all, regardless of the route of this line, I think the plan should be to bury it. I have a hard time buying the cries of poverty by Dominion. And apparently while they weren't willing to spend millions more to bury the line, they were willing to spend millions more on a longer route. The new route would cost an additional $60 million because it's a much more indirect route.

I also haven't heard Dominion doing all that much to encourage conservation to reduce the need for future lines. If the only strategy is just to continue to build more lines as the population grows and demand increases we can look forward to a truly ugly landscape!

This move to a more southerly, more indirect route seems designed to move the fight to a group Dominion believes will be less well organized and less well funded. That's never a good enough reason and in this case I believe it may also be a serious miscalculation.

As always, local activism and organization will have a huge impact in how this turns out. If you're interested in more details on the latest announcement you can see articles on today's announcement in both the Fauquier Times Democrat and the Culpeper Star Exponent or on RappVoice. You can also look at the Piedmont Environmental Council's website for a more detailed report on the history of this project.

Where do you stand on this issue?

Each year at this time the Rappahannock Animal Welfare League hosts the Strutt Your Mutt fundraiser. This event raises fund for the Rappahannock County Animal Shelter. And, it's a lot of fun!

The event is being held tomorrow, October 28th from 10-3 at Mountain View Dog Training in Amissville. Directions can be found on the RAWL web site: http://www.rawldogs.org

This is one of the few events you'll find where you're actually encouraged to bring your dog! There are contests for both of you, including  The Speedy Strutt for the fastest walkers, The Ultimate Challenge, an obstacle course and The Costume Hunt. There's a Biscuit Catch Championship and a Popcorn Toss Tournament. If you don't have your own dog you can borrow one of the shelter dogs to compete in the events.  And, if you fall in love, you can adopt one and take him or her home!

Food will, of course, be available, as will live music. Bare Witness and Tommy G will provide the non-canine entertainment. So, get out and enjoy a beautiful fall day in Amissville and help support this great charity!

(Sunday, October 29th, is the rain date.)

Buyers are always interested in how many days a property has been on the market. Buyers assume that the longer a property has been on the market, the more negotiating leverage they have.  And, generally speaking, that's probably true. That assumes, of course, that the seller really does need and/or want to sell!

Sellers, in this market, are very sensitive to days on market as well, and are worried about the perception buyers have as they see that Days on Market number increase.  Again, this is perfectly reasonable. They don't want to give buyers the impression they have more leverage, even if it might be true! No one wants to give away information that might hurt their negotiating position.

Sellers are asking more frequently how they reset the counter to show their property as newly on the market.  Many times they believe that if they withdraw their house from the market for a few days and then put it back on, that will reset the counter. Some believe that if they relist with a new agent the counter will go back to zero. Generally, what I tell them is that this doesn't work. But the full answer is a little more complex than that and this seems like a good place to go into a little more detail.

The Multiple Listing Service that we use in this area actually carries to Days on Market numbers for every listing.  They are shown as DOM-M and DOM-P. They stand for Days on Market-MLS and Days on Market-Property. The first one, DOM-M, does reset when you relist your home with a new agent. Or, if your listing expires and then is put back on the market a week or two later. But the second category, DOM-P does not reset unless your home is off the market for at least 180 days. Since both of these fields are available to both agents and consumers in the data they see, it's pretty hard to fool anyone about how long your home has been for sale.

As with almost everything in life, prevention is the way to go here! Price it properly, make sure it shows well and odds are most homes will sell within the average days on market for this area.