The percentage of all-cash home sale transactions declined for the 25^th consecutive month in January, falling to a 38.9 percent share.  CoreLogic said that this was a 2.6 percent decrease from January 2014 when cash sales accounted for 41.4 percent of sales.

Cash sales peaked in January 2011 at a 46.5 percent share, close to double the share prior to the housing crisis.  CoreLogic said that if cash sales continue to fall at the same rate it did in January it will reach the "normal" rate of 25 percent in mid-2018.

The January share of cash transactions did rise from December, up 3.2 percentage points.  CoreLogic called a January increase typical, exemplifying the seasonality of the market and the reason why cash sales comparisons should be made on a year-over-year basis.     

Cash continues to dominate in sales of lender-owned property (REO) accounting for 60 percent of those transactions in January.  Cash transactions made up 34.5 percent of short sales, 38.4 percent of re-sales, and 17.3 percent of new home sales.  One reason the overall share of cash sales has declined has been the shrinking role of REO which made up only 9.9 percent of sales in January.  At the cash-sale peak REO sales were 23.9 percent of the market.

Florida had the largest share of cash sales at 56.3 percent, followed by Alabama (54.7 percent), New York (48.2 percent), Indiana (47.4 percent) and Missouri (47 percent). Of the nation's largest 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) by population, Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia had the highest share of cash sales at 65.6 percent, followed by four Florida metro areas; Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall (59 percent), West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach (58.4 percent), Cape Coral-Fort Myers (58 percent) and Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach (57.6 percent). Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md. had the lowest cash sales share at 16.2 percent.