One in three buyers paid cash for Orange County homes last year, helping to drive an unexpected housing market resurgence.
Buyers bought a total of 10,760 homes in 2012 without a mortgage, a record high number in figures dating back to 1992, DataQuick Information Systems reported Wednesday.
That's 31.3 percent of the 34,380 homes sold last year. The average for the previous 20 years was 11 percent of all home sales.
Orange County's cash deals accounted for 7 percent of 145,797 all-cash deals made in the state, also a record.
DataQuick attributed the record number of cash purchases to high levels of investor interest and higher lending standards that make it much harder for many buyers to get a home loan.
Statewide, investors and vacation-home buyers accounted for about 55 percent of the all-cash transactions, DataQuick reported.
"It's clear that a lot of today's housing market recovery is being fueled by people putting their own money into homes," DataQuick President John Walsh said. "Some cash buying is part of a normal housing market, but we're at twice that normal rate."
Orange County averaged just over 4,100 cash buyers a year prior to 2012.
Walsh said that there's always a pool of empty-nesters, retirees, wealthy shoppers and overseas buyers who pay cash in any given year. But prior to the credit crunch that hit in 2007, no more than 10 percent of all Orange County homes sold without help from a bank or other lending institution.
In 2008, the proportion of cash buyers jumped to 16 percent in the county and rose steadily to 28 percent in 2011.
In addition, the ZIP code that includes Laguna Woods, a community of residents over 55, led the state in cash buying. DataQuick reported that 74 percent of the sales in Laguna Woods' 92637 were to cash buyers, the highest percentage among California ZIP codes with 100 or more deals.
Record numbers of buyers are paying cash despite 2012's record-low mortgage rates as buyers either were unable to get home loans or used cash to get an edge over other shoppers bidding on homes.
"The lending pendulum has swung to the opposite end of the spectrum," Walsh said. "Even a lot of well-qualified buyers can't get loans."
The statewide median price for a cash deal was $205,000, up 17.1 percent from 2011. California buyers using a mortgage paid a median price of $305,000 in 2012, up 10.5 percent from 2011.
In Southern California, nearly 78,000 buyers paid cash for a home last year, DataQuick figures show.
Just under 25,000 buyers paid cash in Los Angeles County, and nearly 29,000 paid cash in the Inland Empire. The Bay Area had just under 23,000 cash deals in 2012.
Written by,
Jonathan Lansner and Jeff Collins
