Roughly One-Third of Housing Transactions Are Cash Sales

Cash sales accounted for 31.1 percent of total home sales in August, down 1.5 percent from a year earlier, according to new data from CoreLogic.

Among the transaction categories, real estate-owned (REO) sales had the largest cash sales share in August at 58.6 percent, followed by resales at 31 percent, short sales at 29.1 percent and newly constructed homes at 15.6 percent. Alabama had the largest cash sales share of any state at 44.9 percent, followed by New York (42 percent), Florida (40.9 percent), Indiana (38.6 percent) and Kansas (38 percent).

CoreLogic also reported that the distressed sales share of 7.3 percent in August was the lowest since September 2007. However, eight states saw year-over-year increases in distressed sales, most notably Maryland (a 19.1 percent share of sales), Connecticut (18.5 percent) and Michigan (17.7 percent).