Cash sales made up 33% of total home sales in March 2016, a decrease of 2.4 percentage points annually, according to a recent report by CoreLogic.
Monthly, cash sales fell by 2.8 percentage points from February. For the first three months of 2016, cash sales averaged 34.7%, the lowest start to any year since 2008.
Though below the peak of 46.6% in January 2011, cash sales are up from the pre-crisis average of 25%. If cash sales continue to fall at the same rate it did in March, they could hit the pre-crisis level by mid-2018.
Real estate owned sales had the highest percentage of cash sales at 57.2%. Resales came in second with 32.9%, followed by short sales at 30.6% and newly constructed homes at 14.4%.
While REO sales have the highest percentage of cash sales, REO transactions accounted for only 6.8% of all market sales in March. When cash sales hit their peak in 2011, REO sales made up 23.9% of market sales.
Resales, while having less of a percentage of cash sales than REOs, make up more of the market share at about 80%, and therefore have a larger impact.
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(Source: CoreLogic)
Alabama reported the largest percentage of cash sales at 49.8%. New York came in second at 47.5%, followed by Florida at 45.9%, Michigan at 41.8% and Indiana at 41%.
This chart shows the total percentage of cash sales from January to March per state:
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(Source: CoreLogic)
