Percentage of all-cash home sales grows
All-cash home purchases increases in Seattle metro
Listen to this article 2 min
Amid skyrocketing interest rates and home prices, about one in five Seattle metro homes sold in December involved all-cash deals.
That’s according to a report by Redfin that showed the share of all-cash purchases in Seattle rose from 16.8% in December 2021 to 19.4% a year later.
The report said all-cash purchases are common in competitive markets as it motivates “affluent buyers to pay cash to entice sellers to accept their offer.”
A further breakdown of the Redfin data by the Washington Post indicates buying in cash was more prevalent in the Eastside market and far-flung parts of Pierce County.
Cash purchases made up about half of all home sales in Gig Harbor, South Hill and Graham. Forty-three percent of homes sold in Bellevue’s 98004 ZIP code, one of the wealthiest in the Puget Sound region, were all-cash transactions.
The use of all-cash for home purchases in the Seattle metro is still low compared to the national average of 31.2%.
According to Redfin, 24.2% of purchase offers in the Seattle metro faced a bidding war in December 2022. It was a steep decline from the 70.6% of offers that received competing bids in December 2021.
“That means buyers with less money in the bank are finally able to win homes,” Redfin senior economist Sheharyar Bokhari said in a news release. “But it’s not all good news for FHA buyers: Their loans are getting accepted because the market is slow, and the market is slow because high rates and prices make it unaffordable for a lot of people.”
As of January, the median home sale price in Seattle city was $760,000, a 4.1% year-over-year increase. The number of homes sold dropped 43.9%.