R.I., Prov. metro March cash home sales lower than national average

CASH SALES made up 29.5 percent of all home sales in Rhode Island in March, which was below the national average of 34.6 percent, according to CoreLogic. / COURTESY CORELOGIC
CASH SALES made up 29.5 percent of all home sales in Rhode Island in March, which was below the national average of 34.6 percent, according to CoreLogic. / COURTESY CORELOGIC

PROVIDENCE – Cash sales made up 29.5 percent of all home sales in Rhode Island in March, and 32.7 percent of all home sales in the Providence-Fall-River-Warwick metropolitan area, according to data released Thursday by CoreLogic.

Those figures are below the national average for cash sales, which was 34.6 percent in March, a drop from 39 percent in March 2014.

Rhode Island’s cash sales also shares dropped from the year ago-period. In March 2014, cash sales represented 34 percent of total home sales.

In the Providence metro, cash sales decreased 1.6 percentage points compared with March 2014, when they were 34.3 percent.

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CoreLogic said that nationally, the year-over-year cash sales share has fallen each month since January 2013, making March the 27th consecutive month of declines. The cash sales share peak happened in January 2011, when they made up 46.5 percent of total home sales nationally. Before the housing crisis, they averaged approximately 25 percent.
CoreLogic said the cash sales share should reach the 25 percent rate again by mid-2016 if it continues the same pattern of monthly declines.

Nationally, real estate-owned sales had the largest cash sales share in March 2015 at 56.2 percent, followed by resales (34.5 percent), short sales (31.6 percent) and newly constructed homes (14.9 percent).
CoreLogic said that the percentage of REO sales that were all cash transactions remained high, but REO transactions comprised only 8.4 percent of all sales in March. In January 2011, when the cash sales share was at its peak, REO sales made up 23.9 percent of total home sales. Resales make up the majority of home sales at about 80 percent, representing the biggest impact on the total cash sales share, according to CoreLogic.
Florida had the largest cash sales share of any state at 51.8 percent, followed by Alabama (50 percent), New York (46.5 percent), New Mexico (42.2 percent) and Michigan (41.3 percent). Of the nation’s largest 100 metropolitan statistical areas measured by population, Philadelphia had the highest share of cash sales at 60.7 percent, followed by West Palm Beach-Boca Raton-Delray Beach, Fla. (59.9 percent), North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, Fla. (59.5 percent), Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Fla. (59.3 percent) and Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, Fla. (58.3 percent).

Colorado Springs, Colo., had the lowest cash sales share at 16.1 percent.

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