Cash sales rose slightly in the month of August, but they are still on track to return to pre-crisis levels sometime in 2017, according to a new report from CoreLogic.
CoreLogic’s latest cash sales report showed that cash sales accounted for 31.7% of total home sales in August, down from 34.9% in the same month last year.
Cash sales increased by a slight margin in August, rising from 0.8 percentage points from July’s total, which was a 9-year low.
According to CoreLogic’s report, the cash sales share typically increases month over month in August due to seasonality in the housing market.
Even with the slight expected increase in August, cash sales are still trending down, back towards pre-crisis levels.
According to CoreLogic’s report, the cash sales share peaked in January 2011 when cash transactions accounted for 46.5% of total home sales nationally.
Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25%.
If the cash sales share continues to fall at the same rate it did year-over-year in Aug. 2015, the share of cash sales should hit 25% by mid-2017.
CoreLogic’s report also breaks down the cash sales by sale type.
Real estate-owned sales had the largest cash sales share in August at 57.9%, CoreLogic’s report showed.
Resales had the next highest cash sales share at 31.1%, followed by short sales at 29% and newly constructed homes at 15.5%.
While the percentage of REO sales that were all-cash transactions remained high, REO transactions accounted for only 6% of all sales in August 2015, CoreLogic said in its report. In Jan. 2011 when the cash sales share was at its peak, REO sales represented 23.9% of total home sales.
CoreLogic’s report also breaks down the states and metro areas that had the largest share of cash sales.
According to CoreLogic, Alabama had the largest share of any state at 47.5%, followed by Florida (45.2%), New York (42.4%), West Virginia (39.6%) and Missouri (39.5%).
Of the nation's largest 100 Core Based Statistical Areas measured by population, Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla. had the highest cash sales share at 51.7%, followed by Philadelphia, Pa. (51%), West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla. (50.8%), North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla. (48.5%) and Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla. (47.7%).
Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, D.C.-Va.-Md. had the lowest cash sales share at 13.6%.
