All-cash investors are coming back into the home market at a rate not seen since last spring. The rate of home purchases relying on cash with no mortgage financing climbed to a 10-month high of 30.1% of home sales in February.
The renewed level of activitiy is also putting a dent in government-backed mortgage market share.
The share of investor all-cash home purchases hit 74.5% in February, up from 71.8% in January. That rate marked the highest level of all-cash purchases by investors in 10 months.
A breakdown of the figures from the monthly Campbell/Inside Mortgage Finance HousingPulse Tracking Survey shows that some of the increase in investor purchases investors is coming from purchasing distressed properties at a higher rate. Distressed property purchases made up 25.6% of the total home purchases in January. That rate is the highest in seven months.
February also saw a decrease in the use of Federal Housing Administration mortgage-insurance financing. One year ago, the FHA share of home purchases was 25.3%. In February, the rate of FHA purchases was 19.4%.
Homeowners may not be using FHA financing as much because they are more able to use cash themselves. The share of home purchase transactions by current homeowners involving cash climbed to 26.3% in February. That was up from 25.0% in January and marks the highest level in almost a year.
