Home prices in Florida have experienced immense gains from last August.

Florida municipalities posted huge year-over-year price gains in August, a strong sign that after a couple tough years, the state’s market is rebounding in a major way.

As part of a study by Realtor.com, 146 municipalities in the U.S. were examined, and median home prices for single family homes, condominiums, townhouses and co-ops for August 2010 were compared to that of August 2011. Four of the top five municipalities, in terms of highest gains, were in Florida.

The four areas are:

• Fort Meyers and Cape Coral, Fla., the highest ranking municipality, had a median price of $213,000 in August 2011, a 33 percent increase from August 2010.
• Miami came in second place, where the median list price of $249,000 was a 24.5 percent increase year-over-year.
• Naples, Fla. came in third with a median list price of $359,900, which was a 20 percent increase from the previous year. Punta Gorda, Fla., was in fourth.

By contrast, nationwide year-over-year price gains were just 0.5 percent.

Julie Reynolds, a spokesperson for Realtor.com, said that the gains in Florida were a positive sign for the national markets.

“It appears that we are in a phase of stability right now,” Reynolds said. “We see this as potentially positive, [since] Florida was one of the first markets to be affected by the deterioration of the housing economy.”