October Cash Home Sales Highest in Alabama, Florida, New York

In October of 2015, cash sales comprised 33.9% of all home sales, down from 36.4% in October of 2014, marking the 34th consecutive year-over-year monthly decline. Cash sales rose by 1.4 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%. At the October rate of decline in monthly cash sales, that average should be reached again in mid-2018.

The five states where cash sales were highest in October were Alabama (51.7%), Florida (46.7%), New York (46.3%), West Virginia (44.4%) and Indiana (40.8%). 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 59.7% of all cash sales, while cash sales for resales and short sales accounted for about 33.2% and 31.3%, respectively. All-cash sales of new homes came in at 16.7% of all new home sales.
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As a percentage of all sales, REOs accounted for 7.3% of total October 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 September were:

• Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla.: 51.6%
• West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla.: 50.9%
• Detroit, Mich.: 50%
• Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla.: 49%
• Philadelphia, Penn.: 48.9%

The metro area with the lowest percentage of cash sales was Syracuse, N.Y., with a cash sales share of 13.9% of all sales.