When it comes to buying a house, cash is king—but that might be starting to change.
In a new report, Realtor.com found that cash sales are finally on the decline after the pandemic-era boom created a flurry of buyers paying for homes outright rather than with financing.
In the first quarter of 2026, cash sales made up 31.4% of home purchases, down a percentage point from the year prior. While home sales slowed broadly from 2025 to 2026, cash sales showed an even more pronounced slowdown. Home sales fell by 8.5% across the board, while cash sales fell by 11.2% during the same period, outpacing the market-wide trend.
“Cash buyers aren’t disappearing; they’re simply becoming less dominant as the housing market finds its footing,” Realtor.com Senior Economist Hannah Jones said. “Cash still matters, but today its biggest advantage isn’t just winning bidding wars.” Jones cited increased inventory and normalizing prices as two factors inviting financed offers back into the fold.
During the bidding wars that characterized the super-heated housing market post-pandemic, an all-cash offer enticed sellers as the quickest, most pain-free path to closing a sale. The housing market is much less frenetic these days, saving normal homebuyers who need a home loan some of the heartbreak of being outbid by an all-cash offer. Still, for sellers, a cash offer comes with the peace of mind knowing that a deal will close swiftly without the wrinkles that can come up in the financing process.
Regional trends
On average, more U.S. home shoppers are taking out mortgages to seal the deal these days – but that isn’t the case everywhere. Realtor.com found that Pittsburgh, Austin, and San Francisco all saw an increase in the number of cash-based home transactions between 2025 and 2026. In Pittsburgh, the share of cash home sales shot up by almost 7% this year. In San Francisco, home sales completed in cash spiked by 7.7% year-over-year in one of the country’s most expensive metro areas, a sign of the AI industry wealth flowing in the region.
Cash sales in the housing market are unusual in that they are more common at either end of the price spectrum. At the low end of the market, pulling off an all-cash purchase is easier in the sense that sellers don’t need to come up with as much money to avoid financing a home. On the high end in places like the Bay Area, buyers can pay for relatively extremely expensive homes in cash because they are often much less price sensitive and have a deep pool of liquid assets available.
In the first four months of 2026, over two-thirds of homes sold for under $100,000 were bought in cash. At the opposite end of the price spectrum, more than 40% of homes that went for more than a million dollars were paid for with cash. “At the lower end, investor activity, limited financing availability and credit barriers contribute to elevated cash sales,” Realtor.com’s report explains. On the other side of the market, wealthy buyers simply have enough cash to avoid the relative hassle of dealing with a home loan.