Florida, Alabama, West Virginia Top States for Cash Home Sales
In April of 2015, cash sales comprised about a third of all home sales and marked the 28th consecutive year-over-year monthly decline.
In April of 2015, cash sales comprised 33.7% of all home sales, down from 37.4% in April of 2014, marking the 28th consecutive year-over-year monthly decline. Cash sales fell by 0.9% compared with cash sales in March.
Cash home sales reached a peak in January of 2011, when 46.5% of all home sales in the United States were sold for cash. That peak was nearly double the pre–housing crisis average of around 25%. At the April rate of decline in monthly cash sales, that average should be reached in mid-2017.
The five states where cash sales were highest in April were Florida (51.4%), Alabama (48.5%), West Virginia (48.3%), New York (45.4%) and Kentucky (41.4%). Sales include new construction, resales, real-estate owned (REO) and short sales, and the data were reported Thursday by CoreLogic.
Cash sales for REO properties accounted for 56.6% of all cash sales, while cash sales for resales and short sales accounted for about 33.3% and 30.4%, respectively. All-cash sales of new homes came in at 15.3% of all new home sales.
As a percentage of all sales, REOs accounted for 7.4% of total April real-estate sales. In January 2011, REO sales accounted for nearly 24% of all sales.
Of the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, the five core-based statistical areas with the greatest percentage of cash sales are:
- West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla., 59.1%
- North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla., 58.5%
- Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla., 58.1%
- Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia, Mich., 58%
- Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla., 56.9%
The metro area with the lowest percentage of cash sales was Syracuse, N.Y., with a cash sales share of 11% of all sales.
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Paul Ausick has been writing for 247Wallst.com for more than a decade. He has written extensively on investing in the energy, defense, and technology sectors. In a previous life, he wrote technical documentation and managed a marketing communications group in Silicon Valley.
He has a bachelor's degree in English from the University of Chicago and now lives in Montana, where he fishes for trout in the summer and stays inside during the winter.
