Home Cash Sales Inch Down

The number of cash sales in the Inland Empire housing market dropped slightly in February.

Cash transactions accounted for 26.4 percent of all the homes sold in Riverside and San Bernardino counties during the second month of the year, according to data released Thursday by CoreLogic in Irvine.

That was a two percent drop year-over-year and well below the national rate of 35.7 percent.

Nationally, cash sales peaked in January 2011 when they hit 46.6 percent. At the current pace, cash sales should reach 25 percent – roughly the national average before the housing crisis began – in about two years.

Real estate-owned sales made up the largest percentage of cash sales in February at 59.2 percent, followed by resales at 35.5 percent, short sales at 32.6 percent and new homes at 15.2 percent, CoreLogic reported.

Cash sales are considered an accurate gauge of how many investment buyers – people who buy a house to sell it rather than live in it – are operating in the market at a given time. Some economists have accuse investment buyers of causing the housing crisis by artificially driving up home prices.