This morning the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council issued its monthly Economic and Revenue Update. Here are the key bullets on revenue from the summary:

• Major General Fund-State revenue collections for the September 11–October 10, 2014 collection period were $14.4 million (1.2%) higher than the September forecast.
• Revenue Act collections were $5.4 million (0.5%) higher than forecasted and non-Revenue Act collections were $9.0 million (6.6%) higher than forecasted.

The $14.4 million positive variance was largely due to a $13.3 million positive variance in real estate excise tax, which the Update attributes mainly to strong sales of commercial property.