Publications

- July 1, 2014: Vol. 26, Number 7

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All-cash buyers flood residential market

by Mike Consol

 

When the housing market pancaked in 2008, homeowners and builders fretted the market would turn to molasses as mortgage lenders started requiring significant down payments for loan approvals. Who could afford $50,000 down payments, especially when so many people were out of work or absorbing pay cuts?

It turns out the down payment has become irrelevant for many home sales. During first quarter 2014, 43 percent of U.S. residential property sales were all cash, according to RealtyTrac, which is the highest level of all-cash offers the company has ever recorded. RealtyTrac vice president Daren Blomquist called the number “astounding.”

Institutional and other types of investors have flooded the housing market with cash. Add to that well-heeled fo

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