Pinellas County home sales rose 35 percent from September 2008 to September 2009. Prices declined 16 percent year over year from $160,000 to $134,160.

The statistics come from the Pinellas Realtor Organization. Here's a brief analysis of the numbers:

• Distressed sales, both bank-owned home and pre-foreclosures, dropped to their lowest level since January. They made up 22.4 percent of total sales in September. PRO suggests that might not be a good thing. It said banks could have been dragging their heels on approving short sales.
• The median home sales price has remained fairly steady within a narrow range since February. That's true of other Tampa Bay counties as well. But September prices showed a mini dip. The $134,160 median price was the lowest since April. The $112.80 per-square-foot price was the lowest since March.
• The market is gradually shedding listings. About 12,773 homes were listed for sale in September, down 36 percent from the 20,053 home for sale a year earlier. The Realtors group would like to see further improvement: "We still have over 6,000 single family listings on the market when 3,000 to 4,000 would indicate a more balanced market as we had from 2001 through 2003."
• We're entering months when year-over-year home sales improvements might seem unusually high.The financial crisis put the kibosh on home sales from roughly September 2008 to January 2009. Keep that in mind before drawing overly optimistic conclusions about housing market recovery.