Housing

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

Paul Ausick

Published: February 27, 2017 12:30 pm

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 2:27 pm

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%.