Cash Sales of Homes Take Slight Drop

Thirty one point seven percent of all home sales in the United States during September were cash transactions, a year-over-year drop of 1.3 percent, according to data released recently.

During the same period, distressed sales declined 2.8 percent while real estate-owned sales were at their lowest since August 2007, Irvine-based CoreLogic reported in its monthly study of the national housing market.

Cash sales, which are considered a gauge of how active investment buyers are, peaked in January 2011 when they made up 46.6 percent of all home sales nationwide. Before the recession hit they accounted for 25 percent of all home sales.

At the present trend, cash sales probably will return to 25 percent of U.S. home sales by the middle of 2019, CoreLogic reported.

Distressed sales accounted for 7.3 percent of all U.S. home sales in September, the lowest percentage of any month since September 2007. Distressed sales, which were about two percent of the market pre-recession, peaked in January 2009 when they reached 32.4 percent, according to CoreLogic.