Cash sales dropped to 33.9 percent nationwide – a seven-year low – according to the property information and analytics firm CoreLogic. In Massachusetts, a state with one of the lowest percentages of cash sales in the country, cash sales have also been declining, and in 2015, just 20 percent of properties statewide were purchased without a mortgage.

Cash sales peaked at 46.6 percent nationwide in 2011, according to CoreLogic. Prior to the peak, cash sales hovered around 25 percent of all sales. Economist Albert Saiz, associate professor of urban economics and real estate and director of the MIT Center for Real Estate said the number of cash sales largely depends on sales prices; the higher the price, the fewer cash sales one would expect.

Since the median sales price of a home in Massachusetts is higher than the national median sales price, it’s natural to expect the number of cash sales in the Bay State to stay below the national average.

In 2015, the median price of an all-cash single-family home or condominium was $410,000 in Massachusetts. Since 2013, most of those sales were in Suffolk and Middlesex counties, in the expensive communities that well-heeled buyers flock to: Boston (3,649), Cambridge (800) and Newton (554), according to data from The Warren Group, publisher of Banker & Tradesman.

But cash sales are declining even in those busy counties. In 2013, 18 percent of the condos and single-family homes sold in those counties were cash sales (excluding nominal sales and homes purchased by corporations). Last year, it was 16 percent.

Sellers Like Cash Offers

Deborah M. Gordon, who has been selling real estate in Newton and Brookline for more than 30 years, represents sellers more often than buyers. She said cash offers just make everything a little faster and simpler for sellers.

“You see more cash offers in the lower price ranges (under $1 million) because it’s extremely competitive,” Gordon said. “Those buyers are usually up against someone who is dropping their mortgage contingency. Many waive their home inspection contingencies as well. Cash offers make it easier.”

Gordon said cash buyers don’t fit neatly into a profile; some are international, some are younger buyers who already own property and have some equity built up and many are empty nesters.

In her experience, sellers prefer a cash offer to an offer with a mortgage contingency, even if the offer with the contingency was for a few thousand dollars more.

“It’s more than just the money,” Gordon said. “With a conventional offer, the seller has to wait until the mortgage contingency is satisfied before they know they have a deal. Currently it’s taking nearly four weeks for a buyer to get a mortgage commitment from their lender. That can affect how sellers make other living arrangements.”

And if buyers fail to secure the mortgage, the seller just wasted a month and has to start all over again.

Gordon said most buyers who waive their mortgage contingency and can afford to pay cash for a home will still take out a mortgage of up to $1 million so they can deduct the interest on the loan from their federal income tax.

Depending on the circumstances, Gordon said when representing a seller, she would ask for documentation from a cash buyer that they have the liquid funds or the ability to access conventional or alternative funding before advising a seller to accept their offer.

“It all comes to the seller as cash, but we do need to understand the finances,” she said.

Cash offers are good news for sellers, but it’s a different story for less-moneyed buyers who rely on mortgages to buy property in the Bay State.

Buyers Get Creative

Paul Cottone is a Newton Realtor who has been representing buyers almost exclusively for more than 30 years. He said the current market is the toughest he has ever seen, in part because sellers naturally prefer cash buyers to those who need a mortgage to buy a house, and relatively few people can afford to do that.

“We’ve never seen such a low inventory,” Cottone said. “Almost every listing has multiple offers and is going over asking price. There are a lot of offers my buyers compete against without mortgage or inspection contingencies. Also, if a buyer has less than a 20 percent down payment, it is very difficult to get an offer accepted.”

Cottone said the middle class is getting squeezed out of the market, but he has found some creative ways to strengthen his buyers’ offers to help them compete against cash.

“There’s lots of ways you can try to get around it,” he said. “But it isn’t easy and you have to have a very invested buyer.”

When he knows or suspects he’s competing against cash offers, Cottone said he has at times encouraged buyers to have a home inspection before they make an offer on a property, so if they do make the offer, they can comfortably waive that contingency. He has used escalation clauses in his offers, condensed the timeframe for inspection and/or financing contingencies and other means of strengthening his buyer’s offers while keeping them protected. He said sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.

“Many people don’t realize that a good buyer agent’s job is to sell you to the seller as the buyer they want to deal with over someone else,” Cottone said. “You have to do very creative things today to get a property for a buyer, but at the end of the day, cash is king. There’s not a lot you can do about it.”