Cash Sales of Inland Empire Homes Down

Investment buyers might be leaving the Inland Empire housing market, at least for now.

Cash sales accounted for 23.6 percent of all single-family home sales in Riverside and San Bernardino counties during August, down four percent year-over-year, according to data released Thursday by Irvine-based CoreLogic.

Cash sales reflect the level of investment buying – meaning someone who buys a home to sell it without intending to live there – because investment buyers are usually the only people who can afford to pay cash for a home.

Some economists blame investment buyers for artificially driving up the price of homes, which in turn helped contribute to the recession that began in 2008.

Nationally, cash sales made up 31.7 percent all home sales in August, down from 34.9 percent in August 2014, CoreLogic reported.

Cash sales reached their national peak in January 2011, when they made up 46.5 percent of all home sales in the United States.

Before the housing crisis, cash transactions typically accounted for about 25 percent of all U.S. home sales. At the current pace, cash transaction will likely be back to that level by the middle of 2017.