Following a June that saw large jumps in average sale prices for many area counties, July brought many of them back down to earth.

In July, the county with the largest average sale price was Howard County, at $464,000, but it also saw a relatively moderate increase from the same time last year, up only $2,394, the latest numbers released by Metropolitan Regional Information Statistics Inc. show. This is even smaller when compared with a boost of $22,000 in average sale price during June. Despite these rising prices, Howard properties spent an average of 68 days on the market.