Cash sales accounted for 33 percent of U.S. home sales in March 2016, down 2.4 percent from March 2015. Cash sales share fell 2.8 percent in March 2016 compared with February 2016.

For the first three months of 2016, the cash sales share averaged 34.7 percent, the lowest start to any year since 2008. The cash sales share peaked in January 2011 when cash transactions accounted for 46.6 percent of total home sales nationally. Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25 percent.

Real estate-owned (REO) sales had the largest cash sales share in March 2016 at 57.2 percent. Resales had the next highest cash sales share at 32.9 percent, followed by short sales at 30.6 percent and newly constructed homes at 14.4 percent. While the percentage of REO sales that were all-cash transactions remained high, REO transactions accounted for only 6.8 percent of all sales in March 2016. Resales typically make up the majority of home sales (about 80 percent in March 2016), and therefore have the biggest impact on the total cash sales share.