Cash purchases of homes in the Albuquerque area dropped 4.9 percentage points to 29.7 percent in July compared to a year earlier, giving the metro area a lower rate than the national average of 30.8 percent, CoreLogic reported.
Before the collapse of the housing bubble, cash home purchases accounted for about a quarter of all home sales nationwide. At the low point in the housing market in early 2011, cash transactions approached half of all home sales.
Cash home purchases tend to be associated with distressed properties, accounting for 56 percent of the sales of repossessed homes and 28 percent of short sales nationwide in July. Cash purchases were least common in the sale of new homes at 15.6 percent.
