CoreLogic reported yet another decrease in the share of all-cash home sales in June.  Those sales accounted for 31.3 percent of the total during the month compared to 33.9 percent in June 2014 and was down 0.7 percentage point from May.  The company says that the share of cash sales has fallen each month since January 2013.

Cash purchases were most common for real estate owned (REO) properties at 57 percent of the total and were the only category in which cash sales increased year-over-year.  Resales (sales of existing houses) had a 30.8 percent cash share following by short sales at 28.7 percent.  Only 15.6 percent of newly constructed homes were sold for cash. 

 

 

The cash sales share peaked in January 2011 when those transactions made up 46.5 percent of total home sales nationally. Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25 percent. If the cash sales share continues to fall at the same rate it did in June 2015, CoreLogic estimates the share should hit 25 percent by mid-2017. 

As the REO share of total sales has steadily decreased it has also steadily brought down the cash share of all sales.  At the January 2011 peak of cash sales REO made up nearly a quarter of all sales; in June they accounted for only 6 percent.

New York had the largest cash sales share of any state at 47 percent, followed by Florida (45.8 percent), Alabama (44.8 percent), New Jersey (40.7 percent) and Oklahoma (39.6 percent). Of the nation's largest 100 Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) measured by population, West Palm Beach-Boca Raton had the highest cash sales share at 55.5 percent, followed by Philadelphia (55.1 percent), Sarasota (54.5 percent), Miami (53.5 percent) and Detroit (52.9 percent).