In the years before the housing crisisrncash purchases accounted for about a quarter of home sales but those purchasesrnpeaked in January 2011 at 46.5 percent.  Investorrntransactions typically account for most of the cash sales and these have beenrnconcentrated into purchases of distressed properties.  In March 56.2 percent of sales of bank ownedrnreal estate (REO) properties sold were through cash transactions as were 31.6rnpercent of short sales.  Distressedrnsales, however, represent a shrinking share of all sales.  </p

Resales now make up 80 percent of home salesrnand therefore have the biggest impact on the total cash share.  Meanwhile sales of REO properties were onlyrn8.4 percent of the market in March compared to 23.9 percent at the cash-salernzenith; thus the impact of those sales is also retreating. </p

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If the cash sales share continues tornfall at the same rate it did in March 2015, CoreLogic estimates cashrntransactions should return to their pre-crisis level of 25 percent by mid-2016.</p

Florida reigned at the top of cashrnsales in March, having the largest share of any state at 51.8 percent followedrnby Alabama (50 percent), New York (46.5 percent), New Mexico (42.2 percent) andrnMichigan (41.3 percent).  Philadelphia ledrnamong large Core Based Statistical Areas (CBSAs) with a 60.7 percent share ofrncash sales but the remainder of the top five were all in Florida: West PalmrnBeach-Boca Raton (59.9 percent), Sarasota-Bradenton, (59.5 percent), CapernCoral-Fort Myers, (59.3 percent) and Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla. (58.3rnpercent).

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