The National Association of Realtors released the September figures for existing-home sales this morning, showing a solid 10% jump over the August estimate. September’s sales show a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.53 million sales, up from 4.12 million in August. Regionally, sales in the Midwest and South are leading this growth with respective 14.5% and 10.6% increases over last month.

While any increase in activity in the real estate market is encouraging, the current pace is still almost 20% slower than last year’s September rate of 5.60 million. Actual sales for 2009 were 5.156 million homes. It’ll be difficult to match this for 2010, especially with weak sales this summer—traditionally the busiest time of year for real estate transactions.

Considering that we’re at historic lows in housing starts, the housing market recovery has to be driven by strong existing-home sales, so this uptick is definitely a good sign.