South Lake Tahoe Real Estate Newletter

Back in 2006, about 10 percent of California single-family homes were purchased in all-cash transactions, according to the real estate data firm ATTOM Data Solutions. A decade later, it’s nearly 25 percent. That means a quarter of California’s extremely tight housing inventory is unlikely to go to households like the Rothenbergs-moderate-income families who need a mortgage to buy a home. 

While all-cash buyers are often treated as a rough proxy for international buyers-the California Association of Realtors estimates they are more than twice as likely to pay in cash as domestic buyers-in reality they are more varied. Some are rich enough to not need to finance a first (or second or third) home, or simply prefer California real estate to the stock market. Private investment firms snapped up a ton of cheap homes during the foreclosure crisis-at one point more than one in three California homes was being purchased with all-cash. And increasingly older people, or their children, are liquidating assets to make all-cash offers. Finish reading here.