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

In January of 2016, cash sales comprised 35.5% of all home sales, down from 39.7% in January of 2015, marking the 37th consecutive year-over-year monthly decline. Cash sales rose by 1.9 percentage points month over month, a typical effect for the month of January.

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.

January data were reported Friday 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 (53.1%), Florida (49.1%), New York (47.4%), Mississippi (45.8%) and West Virginia (45.8%). Sales include new construction, resales, real-estate owned (REO) and short sales.
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Cash sales for REO properties accounted for 59.8% of all cash sales, while cash sales for resales and short sales accounted for about 35% and 31.7%, respectively. All-cash sales of new homes came in at 17% of all new home sales in January.

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

• Detroit, Mich.: 65.6%
• West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla.: 54.3%
• Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla.: 53.4%
• Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach, Fla.: 51.5%
• Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla.: 51.1%

The metro area with the lowest percentage of cash sales was Syracuse, N.Y., with a cash sales share of 11.6% of all sales.