The sale of single family homes in Floyd County reached its highest number in two years during August. Greater Rome Board of Realtors President Jason Free, of Keller-Williams Realty, said that 99 units were closed in August, up 41.4 percent from August of a year ago.

“Rome was late getting to the recession party, and we were late leaving it,” Free said. “We have seen steady improvement over the last six months and continue to outpace the 2011 numbers.”

Year-to-date, 539 homes have been sold in Floyd County, compared to 442 through the end of August a year ago. That’s an increase of 21.9 percent.

The average sales price for August was $106,287, which still reflects the high number of foreclosed homes that remain in the local inventory. The August average was down a little more than $1,000 from July, but up approximately $2,400 from August of last year.

Free also indicated that he was particularly pleased to see only seven new foreclosed properties come onto the market in August.

“With fewer distressed properties on the market, we should see the average sales start to climb slightly. All of the indicators show that homeowners have stopped losing equity,” Free said.

The data, supplied from the Georgia Multiple Listing Service, would also indicate September could be another good month for local real estate agents because 83 sales were reported as pending at the end of August.

The report showed that at the end of August, 779 homes were actively on the market, a drop of 17.1 percent from the 941 that were available at the end of August last year.

The large inventory has still had an impact on new housing construction. Through the end of August the Rome-Floyd Building Inspection office had issued only 22 permits for the construction of new single-family homes.