Pennsylvania housing market continues to see increase in cash home purchases

LEMOYNE, Pa., Nov. 29, 2016 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The number of Pennsylvania homebuyers using cash to purchase a home has steadily increased throughout 2016, according to a recent survey conducted for the Pennsylvania Association of Realtors®. The share of cash-only home purchases rose from 19 percent in the first quarter Welcome Home survey to 30 percent in the most recent survey.

"The most interesting growth area in cash-only purchasers came from homebuyers with school-aged children in their home," said PAR President Todd Polinchock. "We saw about a 9 percent increase between the third and fourth quarter surveys in this area."

In addition, college graduates with undergraduate degrees were nearly twice as likely to have reported buying their home with cash in the fourth quarter as they were in the third quarter survey.

The 30-year mortgage is still by far the most popular loan product for the homebuyers surveyed, with nearly 40 percent of buyers using it. "We find that the buyers between 18-49 overwhelmingly choose a 30-year mortgage as their financing," Polinchock said.

"The survey showed that financing also continues to be what many buyers find as the most stressful part of the homebuying process," Polinchock added.

For the third quarter in a row, realtor.com® showed an increase in the share of homebuyers who reported using them to look for their next home. Sixteen percent of respondents used realtor.com® to search for a home in the fourth quarter survey, compared to 10 percent of those responding in the second quarter survey and 14 percent in the third quarter. Comparatively, Zillow.com has remained steady among consumers with an average of 20 percent of the respondents using the home search website in surveys throughout 2016.

The Welcome Home surveys are conducted for PAR by Keystone Analytics® on a quarterly basis and provide information on a number of consumer homebuying trends. More survey results are available online at WelcomeHomePA.org.

The Pennsylvania Association of Realtors® is a trade/professional association that serves more than 30,000 members in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

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SOURCE Pennsylvania Association of Realtors

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http://www.parealtor.org/