Cash sales made up 31.6% of total home sales in April, a decrease of 2.8 percentage points annually, according to a recent report from CoreLogic.
Cash sales share of the market sales decreased 1.6 percentage points from March to April.
For the first four months of 2016, cash sales averaged 33.9% of the market share, the lowest start of any year since 2008.
Cash sales peaked in January when they made up 46.6% of the market. Before the housing crisis, cash sales made up about 25% of the market. If cash sales continue to fall at their current rate, they could hit pre-crisis levels by mid-2018.
Real estate-owned sales had the largest cash sales share at 56.7%, followed by resales at 31.3%, short sales at 28.6% and newly constructed homes at 14.5%.
Although the percentage of REOs that were cash transactions were the highest, REO sales only accounted for 5.7% of the market sales in April. In January 2011 when cash sales hit their peak, REOs made up 23.9% of total home sales.
Resales typically make up the majority of home sales, about 83% in April, and therefore have the largest impact on total cash sales.
Click to Enlarge
(Source: CoreLogic)
Florida had the largest cash sales share of any state at 45.5%, followed by Alabama at 45.3%, New York at 44.2%, New Jersey at 38.2% and Indiana at 38%.
Although Florida may have the largest share of cash sales, it also has some of the summer's most booming markets.
Click to Enlarge
(Source: CoreLogic)