More than one-third of homes were purchased with cash in February as mortgage rates remain high, according to a new report from the real estate company Redfin.
The rate of all-cash purchases — defined as home purchases where the deed does not include mortgage loan information — is within striking distance of the record high of 38 percent in 2013.
While mortgage rates have fallen slightly from their 8 percent peak in October, they are still significantly elevated compared to all-time low rates achieved during the pandemic.
With home prices also up 6.6 percent in February from a year earlier, home buyers are increasingly taking out larger down payments to reduce their monthly mortgage payment.
The median down payment for a house jumped to $55,640 in February, up 24.1 percent from February 2023, according to Redfin.
But most buyers can’t afford all-cash home purchases or a larger down payment, particularly first-time home buyers, the experts at Redfin noted.
“High mortgage rates are widening the wealth gap between people of different races, generations and income levels,” said Chen Zhao, economics research lead at Redfin.
“They’ve added fuel to the fire lit by surging home prices during the pandemic, creating a reality where in many places, wealthy Americans are the only ones who can afford to buy homes,” Zhao added. “Meanwhile, people who are priced out of homeownership are missing out on a major wealth building opportunity, which could have financial implications for their children and even their children’s children.
NICK ROBERTSON
April 1, 2024
Due to rising mortgage rates and falling rents, it’s cheaper to rent than buy a starter home in every one of the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, according to new data from Realtor.com published Monday.
February marked the seventh consecutive decline in rental prices for apartments and small homes, with rents falling by about 0.4 percent compared to a year before. That compared to a rise in prices for buying starter homes, on average $1,000, or 60 percent, higher than rents.
The difference was felt most in the country’s fastest growing cities. It was more than twice as expensive to buy a starter home than rent in Austin and Seattle, and nearly twice as much in Phoenix and San Francisco.
In the Austin area, rents average $1,530, while buying a similar home would cost about $3,695 per month, given average mortgage rates. Rents fell by a massive 4.4 percent in Austin last year, one of the fastest rates of any major city as its housing market booms.
Compared to 2023, the disparity increased the most in Los Angeles, Nashville, Phoenix, Memphis and Raleigh, N.C. In Richmond, Va., renters save $700 more than a year prior over buyers.
Mortgage rates have risen to nearly 7 percent in parts of the country as high Federal Reserve interest rates remain steady.
All-cash home buyers pay 10% less than mortgage buyers
Reducing the friction between mortgage buyers and sellers could go a long way in promoting home ownership, according to new UC San Diego Rady School of Management research
Owning a home has long been considered a crucial way to build wealth, but making such a purchase has become increasingly difficult for many residents. In addition to steep housing prices and high interest rates, there have been a growing number of all-cash buyers who can close a deal quickly, beating out competing offers from buyers who need to finance their home with a mortgage.
The convenience and certainty of all-cash offers appeals to sellers so much so, that they pay on average 10 % less than mortgage buyers, according to a new study from the University of California San Diego Rady School of Management.
“When sellers accept a mortgage offer, it comes with risk,” said Michael Reher, study coauthor and assistant professor of finance at the Rady School of Management. “There is a risk the deal will fall through because there’s a third-party mortgage lender who needs to approve the loan for the borrower and there are other caveats such as issue the appraisal, or inspection, which is why around 10% of transactions fail when the buyer is paying with a mortgage. We find sellers are willing to leave money on the table to avoid the risk.”
The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Finance, finds that while 10% is the average difference between mortgage and cash buyers, it does not necessary apply to all buyers who need to purchase a home with a loan. For example, mortgage buyers with a relatively good borrowing profile pay only 6 % more than all-cash buyers, especially if the sale is taking place in an area where most real estate transactions are successful.
In areas where there may be more low-income buyers and mortgage transactions carry greater risk, a mortgage buyer can expect to pay up to 17% more, if the seller has a competing offer from an all-cash buyer.
“Considering that about a third of home purchases are all-cash deals, these differences are highly relevant for real estate market participants,” said Rossen Valkanov, study co-author and professor of finance for the Rady School.
He added that understanding the "cash discount" in real estate is important because it highlights the friction between mortgage buyers and sellers.
“In policy terms, U.S. taxpayers subsidize $8 trillion of mortgages to promote homeownership,” Valkanov said. “If policy makers made it easier for mortgage buyers to close escrow, it could be a more cost-effective route to promoting homeownership than subsidizing mortgages for first-time homebuyers.”
An example of reducing friction between mortgage buyers and sellers could be reducing the degree of “ambiguity” about the home sale process, from the standpoint of home sellers. This could potentially be achieved by requiring listing agents to make sure that home sellers are well-informed about the amount of risk and the time to close when accepting an all-cash versus a mortgaged offer.
“At the time a mortgage offer is submitted, a listing agent can disclose an easy-to-understand statistic, such as: ‘over the last 12 months, 97% of mortgage offers resulted in a sale after 60 days,’” Valkanov said.
The implications of a liquid housing market edging out many first-time buyers
Most first-time home buyers have to finance the purchase with a mortgage and the 10% “cash discount” all-cash buyers receive represents another hurdle in a competitive real estate market. In California for example, where inventory is low, the average age of the first-time homeowner is now almost a decade older compared to the 1980s.
But it has other implications for real estate. The increase in buyers with deeper pockets choosing to finance homes with cash because of higher interest rates also equates to a greater number of buyers possibly getting real estate at prices below the property’s actual value. Therefore, a liquid housing market with more all-cash buyers may erode the value of real estate as a savings vehicle, the authors note.
Reher and Valkanov embarked on the study after they both had experienced mortgage offers to homes being rejected because sellers went with an all-cash offer instead.
They replicated the findings in three different studies with the first assessing data from 2 million home sales across more than 90% of U.S. counties from 1980 to 2017. The data from county recorder offices revealed that mortgage buyers paid on average 11% more than all -cash buyers.
The second study utilized data from Redfin which provided the authors with information on more than 20,000 home sales as well as offers on homes that were sold from 2013 to 2021. This data set revealed mortgage buyers paid 8% percent more than all-cash buyers.
The third study involved an experimental survey designed by the authors where they asked 3,000 independent homeowners to imagine scenarios where they had to sell their home and received two competing offers—one from a mortgage buyer and one from an all-cash buyer. The responses revealed that the participants would only accept the mortgage buyers offers if they had paid on average 10% more than the all-cash buyer.
To read the full study, “The Mortgage-Cash Premium Puzzle,” go to this link.
JOURNAL
The Journal of Finance
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Meta-analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
The Mortgage-Cash Premium Puzzle
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