Nearly Half of All Homes Purchased With Cash

[bjl584]

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/nearly-half-of-all-homes-are-purchased-in-cash-2013-08-29?dist=beforebell

[scfr]

Interesting article. However, is 40% really "almost half"?

[bjl584]

Interesting article. However, is 40% really "almost half"?

In the second paragraph the Goldman Sachs report says that 57% of all residential home sales were cash purchases.

The reports are a bit conflicting, but if you average it out you end up with 48.5% or about half.

[MonkeyMama]

In my city, the amount of cash buyers is in line with the amount of investors - both around a 40% level. Odds are, when a house is sold in our neighborhood, it will be sold to a flipper and then a landlord.

When you factor big city transplants, the local market is pretty abysmal. I figure things might actually be on a real rebound when people actually buy houses to live in. In the interim, it is just so speculative. In fact, our home price went up 60% during the 6 months from July 2012 to December 2012. Somewhere around that time frame. That's a bigger jump than we ever had during the first Bubble (in any one year). I call this Bubble 2.0. Around here, nothing's changed. There is just such a disconnect between "reality" and home prices. "Reality" is rampant unemployment and wages that don't support the cost of housing, and lots of $0-down loans (I don't know any actual "buying a house to live in" buyers who have more than 0% or 3% to put down - they are all getting loans just fine). These loans may be harder to get, but no one has the means to actually put 20%-down. So, creative financing becomes the most popular way to buy a house.

I suppose I'd be curious how many people were actually buying homes in the middle realm. All I literally see is the retired/wealthy/investors and the "really creative financing/$0-down" groups. I don't see *anything* in between. So it does make me curious - there's got to be some average families or people out there buying homes they can actually afford. Young people who can't pay cash. ???