Are Cash Sales on the Decline in Palm Beach?
We’ve all heard the phrase “cash is king” and while that may still be true in the luxury Jupiter and Palm Beach real estate market, fewer home buyers are actually paying all cash for a home or condo in the area.
According to recently released data from local Realtor boards, more than half of all home and condo sales in Palm Beach and Broward counties in 2014 were all-cash transactions, suggesting the luxury market, as well as the investment market, is alive and well down here in South Florida.
However, a more recent look at the Palm Beach area market is now showing cash sales are slowly declining, which to some degree, can certainly be viewed as a good thing. Taking the luxury segment out of the equation, buyers paying all cash for a home or condo are almost always investors looking to flip a property, but now that market conditions have improved and financing has become slightly easier to obtain, both first-time buyers and buyers of primary homes are once again getting back into the marketplace, which is great for the overall health of the market.
In Palm Beach County, 2013 saw 18093 cash transactions, or about 62% of all home sales. In 2014, cash purchases fell to 17,723, or about 56% of all home sales. And although we’re only a quarter of the way through 2015, you can expect that number to fall even further, as financing standards continue to loosen with interest rates still around 3%.
