Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
The total number of all cash sales in the United States accounted for 34.8% of home transactions in September this year, down from 37.2% a year earlier according to data from Core Logic.
The percentages of all cash sales has consistently fallen each month since January last year, and September marked the 21st consecutive month of declines in this sector. However the article in Propertywire points out that it’s best to make comparisons on a year on year basis due to seasonal fluctuations within the housing market.
© vadim yerofeyev
Before the housing crisis began the number of cash sales accounted for around a quarter of the market but peaked in January 2011 when transactions went up to 46.4% of total home sales. In September real estate owned sales accounted for 58.1%, re-sales accounted for 34.4%, short sales came in at 32.4% and 16.8% of sales were for newly built homes.
Although the percentage of real estate owned sales was high for that month, it only accounted for 7.8% of total sales in September which means it doesn’t have a large influence on the market share of cash sales. In comparison, real estate owned sales accounted for 23.9% of total sales in January 2011 when cash sales accounted for a far larger share of the market.
When the figures are broken down, Delaware had the largest share at of all the states at 57.4%, while in Florida this figure was 50.8%, in Alabama it was 49.6%, in New York it was 44.4%, and was 43.3% in Idaho. When the nation is broken down into the 100 Core Based Statistical Areas which are measured by population, Florida topped the list for cash sales. Miami Beach Kendall, Florida had the largest share of cash sales at 56.2%, while the figure for West Palm Beach Boca Raton-Delray Beach in Florida was 55.9%. Next on the list was Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach-Deerfield Beach in Florida at 54.7%, while Detroit-Dearborn-Livonia in Michigan saw cash sales account for 53.1%.
The lowest level of cash sales was seen in Washington-Arlington-Alexandria, DC which had just a 16.2% cash sales share.
