The Putnam county housing market experienced rising sales and prices in the first quarter. The number of sales rose 4.6% to 229 from the year-ago quarter to the highest first-quarter sales total in 13 years. Elevated sales levels have helped work off inventory levels, once bloated, to a record low for the twenty-four quarters this metric has been tracked. There were 450 listings at the end of the first quarter, down 16.2% from the prior- year quarter. As a result of falling supply against…