Florida Home Sales Increase +27% in April

"Sales of existing homes in Florida rose 27% in April, which means that sales activity has increased in the year-to-year comparison for 20 months, according to the latest housing data released by Florida Realtors. Another positive sign: Last month's statewide existing-home median price of $140,100 was 1 percent higher than the statewide median price in April 2009.

Existing home sales rose 27% last month with a total of 16,781 homes sold statewide compared to 13,244 homes sold in April 2009 (see chart). Statewide existing home sales last month increased nearly 3 percent over statewide sales activity in March. Meanwhile, April's statewide existing-home median price was 2.3% higher than March's statewide existing-home median price of $137,000. It marks the second month in a row that the statewide existing-home median price has increased over the previous month's median."

MP: Assuming the median home price in Florida is not too different from the mean home price, the total housing sales volume in the state increased from about $1.84 billion in April 2009 to about $2.35 billion in April 2010, for almost a 28% increase. If we measured housing market activity like we measured vehicle sales - in unit sales, without regard to price - we would conclude that the Florida housing market is booming, with 20 consecutive monthly increases compared to the same month in the previous year, and a whopping 27% increase from April of last year. And if we measured housing activity like we measure retail sales (total sales volume), we would also conclude that the Florida housing market is doing quite well, with something like a 28% increase in sales volume (assuming the median home price is an accurate estimate of the mean home price) in April compared to last year.