2023: 40% of home purchases were all cash. Median price well over $1M (Santa Cruz County)

[CoopersDad]

And this is why I know people who commute from 100 miles away, two hours each way.

A record share of houses sold for cash in Santa Cruz County in 2023, underscoring the struggles first-time homebuyers face in a challenging real estate market that prefers those with deep pockets.

Last year, nearly 40% of homes went for cash in the county, up from around 26% five years ago in 2019, according to figures provided to Lookout by property-data service ATTOM. Last year marked the highest percentage of cash purchases recorded in ATTOM’s data going back to 2005...
https://lookout.co/santa-cruz-county-home-sales-all-cash/

We need to shut down empty homes, investment buyers, and build 100% affordable housing in this region.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. Really needs to be stated that cash here means without mortgage

not depositing a hay bale of 50 dollar bills.

[CoopersDad]

2. Correct, purchased without a conventional loan, cash to the seller.

Typical of investment purchases as opposed to buyers from the middle or even upper middle class.

[Fiendish Thingy]

3. Reminder: Santa Cruz is only about an hour from Silicon Valley

Lots of working stiffs with stock options can buy homes for cash.

I had a friend who was a facilities manager for Yahoo, and became a near-millionaire overnight when he cashed in his options, and that was about 20 years ago, when the median price of homes in Santa Cruz was nowhere near a million.

[ThoughtCriminal]

4. I paid cash for my last two homes

In both cases I was downsizing and used the cash from selling my previous homes. I'm sure a lot of these cash buyers are investors, but not all of them.