Fewer and fewer Metro Atlanta homes are being bought and paid for with all cash. The same trend is holding up nationally as well.
Cash home sales fell to 35.5 percent of the market nationwide in December 2014 compared to 38.5 percent in December 2013, according to new numbers released by CoreLogic.
A high rate of Metro Atlanta homes being paid for with cash are often thought to indicate investors are playing a larger role in real estate purchases, as they usually have more cash available than traditional home buyers, who more typically utilize mortgage loans.
The year-over-year numbers for cash sales have fallen every month since January 2013, making December 2014 the 24th consecutive month of year-over-year declines in the share of cash sales. The peak came in January 2011, when cash sales made up 46.5 of home sales.
Who's Buying the Most Metro Atlanta Homes?
While the number of Metro Atlanta homes being bought with cash is continually dropping, a new study by the National Association of Realtors on generational trends found millennials represented the largest share of recent buyers of Metro Atlanta homes.
It is the second year in a row the study found those aged 34 and younger did the most home buying — 32 percent of the total in the United States.
Generation X, those aged 35 to 49, were the second largest group, at 27 percent.
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