January Cash Home Sales Highest in Alabama, New York, Florida

April 27, 2017 by Paul Ausick

January cash home sales comprised 36.5% of all home sales, unchanged compared with January 2016, ending a consecutive run of 47 months of year-over-year declines. Cash sales rose by 4.4 percentage points month over month.

Cash home sales reached a peak in January of 2011, when 46.6% of all home sales in the United States were cash transactions. That peak was nearly double the pre–housing crisis average of around 25%.

January data were reported Thursday by CoreLogic. For all of 2016, cash sales accounted for 32.1% of home sales, down 2.2 percentage points compared with the 2015 total. That’s the lowest annual cash sales percentage since 2007.

Cash sales for real-estate owned (REO) properties accounted for 61.2% of all cash sales, while cash sales for resales and cash sales for newly constructed homes accounted for about 36.5% and 17.7%, respectively. Alabama had the largest January cash sales share of any state at 52%, followed by New York (49.7%), Florida (48.3%), Indiana (46.0%) and Missouri (45.4%).

Sales of distressed properties accounted for 7% of all January home sales, the lowest total since September 2007. The five states posting the largest share of distressed sales in January were:

  • Connecticut: 17.3%
  • Maryland: 16.3%
  • Michigan: 15.1%
  • New Jersey: 15.1%
  • Illinois: 12.8%

As a percentage of all sales, REOs accounted for 5.9% of total January real-estate sales. At their peak in January 2009, distressed sales accounted for 32.3% of all sales, with REO sales chalking up 27.9% of that share. Prior to the housing crisis, the share of distressed sales traditionally held at around 2%. If year-over-year decreases continue at the current rate, the 2% rate should be achieved by early 2018.

The state with the lowest percentage of distressed sales was North Dakota, with 1.2%. Just two states — North Dakota and Utah — and the District of Columbia are near their pre-crisis levels of total distressed sales.

Take This Retirement Quiz To Get Matched With A Financial Advisor (Sponsored)

Take the quiz below to get matched with a financial advisor today.

Each advisor has been vetted by SmartAsset and is held to a fiduciary standard to act in your best interests.

Here’s how it works:
1. Answer SmartAsset advisor match quiz
2. Review your pre-screened matches at your leisure. Check out the
advisors’ profiles.
3. Speak with advisors at no cost to you. Have an introductory call on the phone or introduction in person and choose whom to work with in the future

Take the retirement quiz right here.