Cash Sales Remain 25 percent above "Normal"

The importance of cash in home sale transactionsrndeclined in April for the 28^th consecutive month.  CoreLogic said on Thursday that all-cash homernpurchases comprised 33.7 percent of all sales during the period, down from 37.4rnpercent a year earlier.  Month-over-monthrnthe share fell by 0.9 percent.  </p

Cash purchases typically account for about onernquarter of home sales but, as overall sales declined and investors became arnmajor force, cash accounted for 46.5 percent of home sales at the peak inrnJanuary 2011.  CoreLogic said if the cashrnsales share continues to fall at the rate it did in the current report periodrnthe share should return back to the 25 percent pre-crash levels by mid-2017.</p

Cash sales continue to dominate in the distressedrnmarket; the share of all cash REO sales increased year-over-year in April torn56.6 percent.  One-third of resales werernall cash, 30.4 percent of short sales, and 15.3 percent of newly constructedrnhome purchases. As REO sales decline, they made up only 7.4 percent of homernsales in April, their predominance of cash sales has less effect on overallrnnumbers.  InrnJanuary 2011 when the cash sales share was at its peak, REO sales made up 23.9rnpercent of total home sales. Eighty-one percent of April’s sales were in the resalerncategory which therefore has the biggest impact on the total cash sales share.</p

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Florida had thernlargest cash sales share in the nation at 51.4 percent followed by Alabamarn(48.5 percent), West Virginiarn(48.3 percent), New York (45.4 percent) and Kentucky (41.4 percent).  Among the largest 100 Core Based StatisticalrnAreas four in Florida, West Palm Beach-Boca Raton, North Port-Sarasota, CapernCoral-Fort Myers and Fort Lauderdale all topped 50 percent in cash sales as didrnDetroit.   Syracuse, N.Y. had the lowest cash sales sharernat 11.0 percent.</p

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