Bypassing mortgage rates: Share of US homes bought with cash hits highest level in nearly a decade
Homebuyers who can afford to bypass the highest mortgage rates in two decades are increasingly forgoing financing and paying all cash
LOS ANGELES — Homebuyers who can afford to bypass the highest mortgage rates in two decades are increasingly forgoing financing and paying all cash.
Homes purchased entirely with cash, which means there was no reference to a mortgage on the deed, accounted for 34.1% of all sales in September. That's up from 29.5% a year earlier and the highest share in nearly a decade, according to a Redfin analysis of home sales in 40 of the nation's most populous metropolitan areas.
Still, sharply higher home loan borrowing costs, a dearth of homes for sale and rising home prices have dampened home sales overall, which has helped give a boost to all-cash transactions’ portion of all home sales.
Even as their share of all sales increased, the number of all-cash transactions in September fell 11% from a year earlier, Redfin found. In contrast, home sales overall fell 23% in the same period.
“Were it not for these cash buyers, I think the housing market would be in even worse position than is now,” said Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist.
Even homebuyers who use financing are electing to make bigger down payments in order to reduce the size of their mortgage.
The typical U.S. homebuyer put down 16.1% of the purchase price in September, the highest percentage in nearly a year and a half, Redfin said.
The last time all-cash transactions made up a bigger portion of all home sales was February 2014, when the share was 34.3%. Back then, the housing market was still on the mend following the late-2000s housing crash that led to millions of foreclosures. Corporate homebuyers and other real estate
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