Cash sales fall again in October in Providence metro

CORELOGIC SAID the cash sales share of total home sales in the Providence-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area was 22.5 percent in October. / COURTESY CORELOGIC
CORELOGIC SAID the cash sales share of total home sales in the Providence-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area was 22.5 percent in October. / COURTESY CORELOGIC

PROVIDENCE – The cash sales share of total home sales in the Providence-Warwick-Fall River metropolitan area slid to 22.5 percent in October, a 0.3 percentage point decrease compared with October 2015, CoreLogic said this week.

Rhode Island’s cash sales share was higher than the Providence metro’s at 23.8 percent in October, a 2.9 percentage point drop over the year.

However, cash sales shares in Providence-Warwick and in Rhode Island were lower than the 31.8 percent national rate, which fell 2.7 percentage points over the year.

Cash sales peaked nationwide in January 2011, when they accounted for 46.6 percent of total home sales nationally. Before the housing crisis, cash sales averaged approximately 25 percent of total home sales.

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Corelogic said if cash sales continue to fall at the rate they did in October, the share is expected to hit 25 percent by the middle of next year.

Alabama had the largest cash sales share of any state in October at 47.5 percent, followed by New York at 44.5 percent, Indiana at 41.8 percent, Florida at 41.5 percent and Missouri, 38.8 percent. Washington, D.C., had the lowest cash sales share at 15 percent.

Nationwide, real estate-owned sales had the largest cash sales share in October at 59.2 percent. Resales had the next highest cash sales share at 31.7 percent, followed by short sales at 30.2 percent and newly constructed homes at 15.9 percent. REO transactions have declined since peaking in January 2011.

The national distressed sales share of total home sales, of which REO sales made up 5 percent and short sales made up 2.6 percent, was 7.7 percent in October, the lowest distressed sales share for any month since October 2007. At its peak in January 2009, distressed sales totaled 32.4 percent of all sales, with REO sales representing 27.9 percent of that share. Pre-housing crisis, the share of distressed sales was traditionally approximately 2 percent. CoreLogic said if current trends continue, the 2 percent mark will be hit again in mid-2018.

All but eight states recorded lower distressed sales shares in October compared with a year earlier. Maryland had the largest share of distressed sales of any state at 18.6 percent, followed by Connecticut, 18.3 percent. North Dakota had the smallest distressed sales share at 2.7 percent.

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