Peter and Mary Ribaudo spent the last four years trying to sell their Bradenton home. They’d just about given up when out of the blue they got an offer.

“We were surprised when along came a buyer. Um, it seemed to come out of nowhere and we thought this is the time we might sell,” said Peter Ribaudo.

Now the couple has made an offer on a home in Tallahassee. It wasn’t their first choice, but other homes they were considering were snapped up before they could make an offer.

“These houses are moving quickly, and you’ve got more than one person, sometimes, on a house,” said Mary Ribaudo.

The taxes from the sale of real estate are one of the brightest pictures in Florida. Its seventeen million dollars over estimate in just May alone.

One reason for the up tick... Banks are lending again. Since the beginning of the year, financial institutions have created 57 hundred new jobs. That accounts for one of every ten new jobs created in Florida since the first of the year.

John Sebree of the Florida Realtors says the horizon looks promising.

“And the fact that pending sales are up thirty five percent shows that people are back in the market, they’re ready,” said John Sebree.

And realtors like Steve Hourigas are counting on the trend continuing.

“They are out there ready to buy...if they take too long, they may not be buying what they thought they were buying,” said Steve Hourigas

One of every four homes being sold is being purchased by a foreign national.

While home sales are increasing, new construction remains one of the hardest hit areas in the state’s economy, losing twenty two thousand jobs over the last year.