Cash sales accounted for 31.6 percent of total U.S. home sales in April 2016, down 2.8 percent year over year from April 2015, according to the latest data released by property information and analytics firm CoreLogic.
Cash sales in the Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk region were down 3.4 percent from April 2015 and sat at 27.4 percent for the month.
On a month-over-month basis, the national cash sales share fell by 1.6 percent in April 2016 compared with March 2016. For the first four months of 2016, the cash sales share averaged 33.9 percent, the lowest start to any year since 2008.
The cash sales share peaked in January 2011 when cash transactions accounted for 46.6 percent of total home sales nationally. Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25 percent.
CoreLogic said that if the cash sales share continues to fall at the same rate it did in April 2016, the share should hit 25 percent by mid-2018.
