April results are in and for the first time in quite awhile we're seeing a small uptick in inventory in most counties. It's not large enough to be a concern at this point. In fact, given that we're in the busy spring/summer season, it's surprisingly small.

In Culpeper there are currently 494 homes for sale. That's still less than we had in January. And it's a huge improvement over the 800+ homes for sale there a year ago. Sales remain strong with 62 homes sold as opposed to 48 last year at this time.

Fauquier remains flatter. Inventory also rose slightly here. There are 569 homes for sale here now as opposed to 556 a month ago. And we're still much better off than April of 2008 when there were 764 homes for sale. But sales aren't much better than a year ago. 54 homes sold in Fauquier County in April. 49 were sold in this period a year ago.

Prince William was the exception to the increase in inventory. It continues to shrink there; good news for sellers, not good news for first time home buyers. There are 2944 homes for sale in Prince William county, roughly half of what was for sale there a year ago at 5880. Sales decreased very slightly month over month: 741 this month vs 750 last month. But homes are still selling much faster than they were a year ago when only 639 sold in April.

Rappahannock County showed a very large jump, from a percentage point of view. There are now 89 homes for sale here vs 76 last month. 27 new properties came on the market, a lot for this small county. That's the highest number of new listings coming on the market in one month in the last four years. But the number of contracts written also jumped to 5 even though sales fell to 2 last month. Large jumps in inventory in Rappahannock previously have resulted in a subsequent withdrawal of many of those listings as people tested the market and then changed their mind about selling. We'll see if the same scenario plays out this time around.

Overall, the market appears to continue to recovery. The only worry here is the seemingly unending stream of foreclosures coming on the market. Between foreclosures and short sales there appears to be no likelihood (except in Prince William) of price increases any time soon.