Put the cash on the table, get the deed in your hand.
In almost exactly one-third of all home sales in July – the most recent data available – the buyer made the purchase with cash or a cash equivalent, according to a report this week from CoreLogic.
By that measure, metro Atlanta was also almost one-third: 32.75 percent of all sales were cash, putting the region 12th highest of the top 25 metro areas.
Nationally, the July figures were pretty much the same as the level in June, but it is a drop from a year ago, according to the California-based data and analysis firm.
Comparing year to year like that, the cash-on-the-barrel share of sales has been since January 2013, Core Logic said.
Cash sales grew dramatically during the housing crisis and recession. Borrowers defaulted on mortgages and lenders foreclosed on many thousands and eventually millions of homeowners.
In many cases, investors swooped in to buy the homes. In Atlanta, for example, thousands of homes were purchased by huge hedge funds.
Sometimes, lenders held on to property and put it back on the market in what are called real-estate owned – or REO – sales. That kind of transaction represented 56.3 percent of cash sales share in July 2014.
Short-sales, in which the borrower is permitted to escape from the mortgage, even if the house is sold for less than he or she owes, accounted for 31.1 percent of cash sales.
Newly-built homes accounted for 16 percent of cash sales, CoreLogic said.
Cash peaked in early 2011 at 46.3 percent of total home sales.
Before the crisis and the ensuing recession, cash sales averaged about 25 percent of total home sales.
By state, Florida had the highest percentage of cash sales: 49.7 percent. Cash sales in Georgia, by comparison, accounted for just 29 percent of cash sales.
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