Cash Sales Hit Nine-Year Low

For the first time since 2007, cash sales for home purchases made up less than 30 percent of all residential property transactions.

According to new data from CoreLogic, cash sales accounted for 29.3 percent of total home sales in June 2016, which is a 0.9 percent drop from May and a 2.5 percent decline from June 2015. Real estate-owned sales had the largest cash sales share at 56.2 percent, followed by resales at 28.9 percent, short sales at 27.7 percent and newly constructed homes at 15.2 percent.

New York had the largest cash sales share of any state at 45.3 percent, followed by Alabama (44.6 percent) and Florida (40.6 percent). Michigan’s Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia had the largest metro area cash sales share at 56.5 percent, followed by four Florida markets: West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach (49.3 percent), Miami -Miami Beach-Kendall (47.9 percent), North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton (47.7 percent) and Cape Coral-Fort Myers (46.1 percent).

Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25 percent; cash sales shares peaked in January 2011 at 46.6 percent. CoreLogic estimates that if the cash sales share continues to fall at the same rate it did in June, the share should hit 25 percent by mid-2018.