According to the Realtor Association of Greater Fort Myers and the Beach Inc., the “robust pace” of existing single family home sales continued in February with 936 homes sold, an increase of 101.7 percent vs. February 2008 and 12.7 percent vs. the prior month. Pending sales continue to outpace last year by 67.5 percent when 1,039 pending sales were reported in February ’08 compared to 1,740 pending sales in February2009, the group said.

However, the number of single family homes listed on the MLS is decreasing (at the end of February, there were 10,501 active listings of existing single-family residential properties compared to 12,281 a year ago, a decline of 14.5 percent). While the inventory supply rose slightly to six months, it is still approximately half of what it was in February 2008, when the supply of existing single family homes was 11.8 months.

The market continues to work through its inventory of bank owned and short sale properties, which is affecting the median price: year to date 66.4 percent of the homes sold were bank owned properties, with a median price of $73,000; 14.3 percent were short sales with a median price of $130,000; and 19.3 percent were traditional properties with a median price of $196,000, according to the Realtos group.