Things are looking up for the real estate market in South Florida, according to the Miami Realtors. In a yearly comparison, pending home sales in July of this year were up 40.5% at 10,113. The pending home sales is a tally of the number of housing contracts that have been signed, yet not closed.

Nationally, the pending home sales index hit a record low of 75.7 during the month of June, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). The low index is claimed to be a result of the expiration of the Homebuyers Tax Credit, a program that offered a tax credit of $8,000 to new homebuyers and $6,500 to qualified second homebuyers.

According to Jack Levine, Chairman of the Board of the Miami Realtors, We are encouraged by the statistics for pending home sales in the South Florida real estate market even after the expiration of the homebuyer tax credit, while the number of pending sales has dropped slightly month-over-month, they are still significantly higher than they were a year ago.