Cash sales continued to decline in importance in September. These sales, which represented close to half of all home sales when foreclosures and lender owned real estate (REO) were at their peak, have now fallen to just over a one -third share.
CoreLogic said on Tuesday that 34.8 percent of home sales were all cash in September. While this was up one percentage point from August, on a year-over-year basis these sales have declined for 21 consecutive months. In September 2013 cash sales had a 37.2 percent share. CoreLogic said that comparisons of these sales should be made on an annual basis because of the seasonal nature of the housing market.
At their peak in January 2011 cash sales made up 46.4 percent of all home sales. In the years prior to the housing crisis the portion of these sales averaged about 25 percent.
REO continues with the largest share of cash sales, 58.1 percent in September. The percentage of cash sales among REO transactions remains high but as the volume of those sales has retreated they have had less and less impact on overall statistics. In September 2014 only 7.8 percent of sales were of previously foreclosed property whereas in January 2011 those sales made up nearly a quarter of all closed transactions.
Re-sales had the second highest percentage of cash transactions (34.4 percent) with short sales next at 32.4 percent. Sales of new homes trailed at 16.8 percent.
Among the states Delaware led with a cash share of 57.4 percent, followed by Florida (50.8 percent), Alabama (49.6 percent), New York (44.4 percent) and Idaho (43.3 percent). Of the nation's largest 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population four of the top five were in Florida led by Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall (56.2 percent), followed closely by West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach (55.9 percent), Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach (54.8 percent), Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla. (54.7 percent) and Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia (53.1 percent). At the bottom, the Washington, DC area had a cash sales share of 16.2 percent.
