Florida is starting to resemble a 13-year-old boy; it just keeps growing and growing and growing. But just like a 13-year- old boy, it could start getting a little wild, and we may not be able to rein it in.

Statistics compiled from census data still being released place seven metro areas in Florida in the nation’s top 50 areas of population growth. Although there were more deaths than births in Florida between July 2013 and June 2014, the amount of migration to the state was heavy enough to overcome the loss of population.

Within Florida, the seven top growth metro areas ranked as follows: Miami-Fort Lauderdale-West Palm Beach; Orlando-Kissimmee-Sanford; Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater; Jacksonville; Cape Coral-Fort Myers; North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton; and Lakeland-Winter Haven. If you think as I do that the growth for our region is a good thing bad thing, at least be optimistic that our growth was only 16,000 compared to the Miami region of 66,000 or Orlando’s 50,000.

I guess the good part of a growing population is that they all have to live somewhere, and the February real estate sales for Manatee County published by the Realtor Association of Sarasota and Manatee are very positive. Single family home sales were up 5.7 percent from last year, and pending sales were up 2.1 percent. The median sale price was up 16.7 percent to $256,750, and the average sale price was up 21 percent from $259,500 to $313,883. The townhouses and condos are also looking up from February of last year with closed sales up 7.8 percent and pending sales up 0.5 percent. Median sales price was up 12.6 percent from $135,000 to $152,000, and average sales price was up 20.1 percent from $170,775 to $205,115.

One of the interesting numbers for Manatee County in February is that the new listings for single family homes were down 0.6 percent and for townhouses and condos it was just about even from last year. This indicates a shortage of inventory which certainly explains the increase in sale prices and number of sales. Never-the-less, a search of over $1 million sales for January and February in the three Island cities and Cortez show six sales between $1 million and $2 million.

Although our area appears to be coming back pretty strong, nationwide the real estate market remains lackluster five years after the recession with a very unhealthy pace of growth. January’s home sales were down 4.9 percent from December but the median sale price rose 6.2 percent. February sales ticked up a little by 1.2 percent from January and 4.7 percent from February of last year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Lawrence Yan, the chief economist for the National Association of Realtors, says it’s all about inventory. “The only way to truly get that inventory is for the home builders to bring those new homes onto the market. When that happens, some of the existing homeowners buy those new homes and thereby release their existing homes on to the market.”

However, he goes on to say that the rate of construction is slow because there is tight credit for home builders. The new mortgage rules set in place after the recession have particularly hurt builders since typically they go to smaller banks, that are restricted by new mortgage rules, for loans.

I guess now we all know why the traffic on Cortez Road and Manatee Avenue heading out to the beaches has been practically at a standstill this season. Those darn 13-year-olds. They just eat you out of house and home.