[IMGCAP(1)]

IRVINE, CA—The total share of all-cash home-buyers is at the lowest amount nationwide since August 2008, according to a new report from RealtyTrac. In addition, the report says FHA buyer share of home sales was at a two-year high in Q2, with buyers using FHA loans accounting for 23% of all single-family home and condo sales with financing—excluding all-cash sales—up from 20% in the first quarter and up from 19% in the second quarter of 2014 to the highest share since the first quarter of 2013.

Moreover, single-family home and condo sales volume through April—the most recent month with complete sales data available—was at the highest level through the first four months of a year since 2006, a nine-year high, according to RealtyTrac, and first half 2015 sellers realized the biggest home-price gains since 2007, with distressed sales at a new low in June and institutional-investor share matching a record low.

According to Daren Blomquist, VP of RealtyTrac, “As the investor-driven housing recovery faded in the first half of 2015, first-time home-buyers, boomerang buyers and other traditional owner-occupant buyers started to step into the gap and pick up the slack. This is good news for sellers in many markets, providing them with strong demand from a larger pool of buyers, and US sellers so far in 2015 are realizing the biggest gains in home-price appreciation since 2007. In June, sellers sold for above estimated market value on average for the first time in nearly two years.”

Blomquist adds that higher-value markets with a larger share of homes priced above the loan limits set by FHA and Fannie and Freddie Mac markets are the most likely to struggle with the second half of the year as the recovery continues to become more dependent on traditional buyers relying on financing. “The health of these high-priced trophy markets will in many ways be tied more to global economic forces driving foreign cash buyers than US economic and real estate fundamentals.”

Blomquist tells GlobeSt.com, “A lower share of cash buyers removes a crutch the housing market has been leaning on, but it's good news for the health of the housing market and mortgage industry as long as we see traditional buyers using financing to fill in the gap left by cash buyers. And we are seeing strong evidence that in fact those traditional buyers are stepping into the gap, given the nine-year high in home sales so far this year and the two-year high in the share of sales backed by FHA-insured loans.”

Fundamentals continue to look strong. As GlobeSt.com reported earlier this month, according to RealtyTrac's Mid-Year 2015 US Foreclosure Market Report, US foreclosure filings were at a 10-year low in the first half of the year, down 13% from the previous six months and down 3% from the same time period in 2014. The report also revealed that the total number of US properties that started the foreclosure process in the first half of the year is down 4% from a year ago and 18% below foreclosure starts in the first half of 2006 before the housing price bubble burst in August 2006. First-half 2015 foreclosure starts were at their lowest level in any year since RealtyTrac began tracking in 2006—a 10-year low.

[IMGCAP(2)]