I should say Un-Conventional mortgages were king during the boom. During 2005 to 2009 I think we had one FHA loan on a home purchase in which we were involved.
Nobody wanted to deal with all the restrictions and requirements of FHA. Honestly, why would they. Sellers wouldn’t even consider many offers which were coming with an FHA pre-approval. There were too many buyer in the market with conventional financing to even have to consider meeting FHA requirements.
Why would a seller put anything in the pot for the buyer when so many buyers were making offers over list price. Today that has changed, FHA financing has made a big comeback.
FHA Financing in November 2010
As you can see from the chart at the right FHA financing was used 183 times for transactions in November. It requires less of a d0wn payment and the buyer’s credit score doesn’t have to be as high as is required for the best rates using conventional financing.
Cash is King (NOW)
But the real interesting story has to do with CASH. More than 25% of the Tucson real estate transactions in November were Cash. Cash transactions have been gaining ground all year. Two hundred and seventy seven cash transactions is amazing. When paying cash there is no loan, no mortgage deduction in the future, no need to worry about interest rates and this home won’t really show up in most housing reports (because most are based on mortgage figures).
Cash transactions are a big part of the Tucson real estate market transactions.
We have a high percentage of cash purchases in Scottsdale as well. Many wealthy Americans and Canadians are picking up some amazing bargains in Arizona and just paying cash for their new vacation homes.