IE Business Daily Business news for the Inland Empire.
Cash transactions accounted for 24 percent of all home sales in the Inland Empire during June, essentially unchanged year-over-year.
Nationwide, cash sales were 29.3 percent, a drop of 2.5 percent compared with June 2015, according to data released Tuesday by Irvine-based CoreLogic.
That was the first time that home cash sales throughout the United States fell below 30 percent in a month since late 2007, CoreLogic reported.
Housing industry officials consider cash sales an indication of home many speculative buyers are active in market at a given time, meaning someone who buys a home not to live in it but to “flip” it for a profit.
National cash sales peaked in January 2011 when they reached 46.6 percent. Some economists have accused speculative buyers of artificially driving up housing prices and causing the housing crisis that contributed heavily to the Great Recession.
Before the recession cash sales accounted for about 25 percent of all home transactions in the United States. At the current pace, cash sales won’t return to that level until mid-2018, CoreLogic reported.
