Home cash sales dip in Prov. metro in August, but increase in R.I.

CORELOGIC SAID cash sales fell over the year in the Providence-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area in August. / COURTESY CORELOGIC
CORELOGIC SAID cash sales fell over the year in the Providence-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area in August. / COURTESY CORELOGIC

PROVIDENCE – Cash sales accounted for 21.2 percent of total home sales in the Providence-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area in August, a 3.5 percentage point decrease compared with August 2015, CoreLogic said Tuesday.

Rhode Island’s cash sales share in August was 26.6 percent, a 0.4 percent increase from August 2015, however.

Cash sale rates in the Providence metro and Rhode Island were lower than the 31.1 percent national rate, CoreLogic said. The national rate fell over the year by 1.5 percentage points.

Nationwide, the cash sales share peaked in January 2011, when cash transactions accounted for 46.6 percent of total home sales nationally. Before the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25 percent. The cash sales share should hit 25 percent by mid-2019 if it continues to fall at the same rate as it did in August, CoreLogic predicts.

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The distressed sales share of 7.3 percent in August was the lowest distressed sales share for any month since September 2007. At its peak in January 2009, distressed sales totaled 32.4 percent of all sales, with real estate-owned sales representing 27.9 percent of that share. The pre-crisis share of distressed sales was traditionally 2 percent. If the current year-over-year decrease in the distressed sales share continues, it will reach that 2 percent mark in mid-2018.

All but eight states recorded lower distressed sales shares in August compared with a year earlier. Maryland had the largest share of distressed sales of any state at 19.1 percent in August, followed by Connecticut at 18.5 percent. North Dakota had the smallest distressed sales share at 2.6 percent, and is within 1 percentage point of its pre-crisis level.

Alabama had the largest cash sales share of any state at 44.9 percent. Washington, D.C. had the lowest cash sales share at 13.5 percent.

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