Local home cash sales up slightly

Home cash sales were up slightly in the Inland Empire in December, according to data recently released.

Overall, 28.1 percent of all home sales in Riverside and San Bernardino counties during the last month of 2016 were cash transactions, according to CoreLogic in Irvine.

That represented a 1.6 percent year-over-year increase for the month of December.

Nationwide, 33.1 percent of all home sales in December were cash transactions, a drop of 1.3 percent compared with December 2015.

Cash sales in the United States reached a peak of 46.6 percent in January 2011. Before the housing crisis they averaged about 25 percent.

At the present rate of recovery, cash sales should return to 25 percent by mid-2019, CoreLogic reported.

Distressed sales – properties that are sold urgently, and often at a loss, so the owner can raise money quickly – made up 7.8 percent of all home sales in December. That was the lowest for any month since October 2007.

For all of 2016, distressed sales nationwide stood at 8.9 percent, down 2.1 percent compared with 2015, CoreLogic reported.