Because San Francisco is home to many wealthy people and attracts investors, real estate transactions paid for with all cash are more common here than in say, Wichita, Kansas. But just how common are they? And better yet, what sort of trends have all cash transactions seen over time in the City?
How many people are paying all cash these days?
We queried the MLS for the answers to these questions, and the results were very interesting. First, we limited the search to the city of San Francisco only (no outlying areas), and tallied up the number of all-cash transactions occurring from January 1, 2008 through December 18, 2008. We included single family homes, condominiums, tic’s, lofts, and stock cooperatives in our query. Next, we ran this same query for each year back to 1995 between the exact same dates. We then compared the total cash transactions of each year to the total number of ALL transactions during that same period of time to give us the percentage of transactions paid for with all cash. All figures are per the MLS.
Here’s the chart: Read the rest of this entry ?
