All-cash home sales slid from historic highs in 2025

The share of homes bought with cash slid further in 2025 thanks to institutional pullback and a buyer’s market taking hold across much of the country.

Cash purchases fell by 0.6 percent in the first half of the year compared to the same time the year before, according to a new report from Realtor.com. However, such sales are still above pre-pandemic norms, with the bulk of cash purchases happening at both the highest and lowest ends of the pricing spectrum, according to the listings platform. 

Elevated mortgage rates and intense competition among buyers caused cash buys to surge during the pandemic, when it seemed like everyone was trying to buy a home.

But in the years since, the proportion of homes purchased with cash has dropped. Last year, buyers purchased 33 percent of homes with cash. The 1.4 million homes purchased this way was the smallest share since 2016, according to Realtor.com. However, it’s still far from the post-Great Recession peak of 35.4 percent in 2012.

All but seven states saw the percentage of cash sales fall year over year. Hawaii, a notoriously expensive state to buy and live in, saw all-cash deals drop by 4 percent, the biggest in the country.

West Virginia, New Mexico and Texas reported the largest spikes in cash purchases, likely because of institutional plays and population growth.

Washington, D.C., had the second-lowest share of homes purchased with cash in the first half of the year. The nation’s capital, a high-priced market that has seen its share of struggles of late in the residential space, also had the highest proportion of owner-occupied homes tied to a mortgage.

Nationally, almost 60 percent of homeowners have a mortgage, a share that has remained stable over the past few years but, in general, has ticked down since 2010, when it was over 67 percent, according to Realtor.com.

Eighty-one percent of existing mortgages are tied to rates of 6 percent or lower, which have left many homeowners, unable to pay for properties in cash, in a bind, according to an analysis by Realtor.com. If rates were to turn down closer to the 6 percent mark, it’s likely housing activity among non-cash buyers would increase as homeowners may feel freer to move.

However, borrowing costs have slowly been ticking up. As of Tuesday afternoon, the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage rate for a home purchase was 6.58 percent, according to Investopedia.