November Cash Home Sales Highest in New York, Alabama, Michigan

February 27, 2017 by Paul Ausick

In November of 2016, cash sales comprised 32.4 of all home sales, up from 36.9% in November of 2015, marking the 47th consecutive year-over-year monthly decline. Cash sales rose by 0.6 percentage points month over month.

Cash home sales reached a peak in January of 2011, when 46.6% of all home sales in the U.S. were cash transactions. That peak was nearly double the pre–housing crisis average of around 25%. If cash sales continue to fall at the November rate, the 25% rate should be achieved by mid-2017.

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

Cash sales for real-estate owned (REO) properties accounted for 60.2% of all cash sales, while cash sales for resales and short sales accounted for about 32.3% and 31.9%, respectively. All-cash sales of new homes came in at 15.5% of all new home sales in November. New York had the largest November cash sales share of any state at 47.4%, followed by Alabama (47.3%), Michigan (44.1%), Florida (42.4%) and Indiana (41%).

Sales of distressed properties accounted for 7.5% of all November home sales, the lowest total since September 2007. The five states posting the largest share of distressed sales in November:

  • Maryland: 18.4%
  • Connecticut: 18.2%
  • New Jersey: 15.8%
  • Illinois: 14.3%
  • Michigan: 14%

As a percentage of all sales, REOs accounted for 4.9% of total November real-estate sales. In January 2011 REO sales accounted for nearly 24% of all sales. At their peak in January 2009, distressed sales accounted for 32.4% of all REO sales. Prior to the housing crisis, the share of distressed sales traditionally held at around 2%.

The state with the lowest percentage of distressed sales was North Dakota, with 1.4%.

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