February Cash Home Sales Highest in Philadelphia, Detroit

In February of 2016, cash sales comprised 35.7% of all home sales, down from 38.1% in February of 2015, marking the 38th consecutive year-over-year monthly decline. Cash sales rose by 0.1 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 sold for cash. That peak was nearly double the pre–housing crisis average of around 25%. If cash sales continue to fall at the December rate, the 25% rate should be achieved by mid-2017.

February data was reported Thursday by CoreLogic. For all of 2015, 33.9% of all home sales were cash transactions, the lowest total since 2008.

The five states where cash sales were highest in January were Alabama (51.7%), Florida (49.2%), New York (46.9%), Indiana (44.8%) and West Virginia (44.2%). Sales include new construction, resales, real-estate owned (REO) and short sales.

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Cash sales for REO properties accounted for 59.2% of all cash sales, while cash sales for resales and short sales accounted for about 35.6% and 32.6%, respectively. All-cash sales of new homes came in at 15.2% of all new home sales in February.

As a percentage of all sales, REOs accounted for 7.8% of total February 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 in February were:

• Philadelphia, Pa.: 54.5%
• Detroit, Mich.: 53.8%
• West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla.: 53.4%
• Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla.: 52.5%
• Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.: 51.8%

The metro area with the lowest percentage of cash sales was Syracuse, N.Y., with a cash sales share of 11.5% of all sales.