Cash sales accounted for 35.7 percent of total home sales in February 2016, down 2.5 percent from February 2015, according a new report from CoreLogic. The share of cash sales increased by 0.1 percent in February 2016 compared with January 2015. For the first two months of 2016, the cash sales share averaged 35.6 percent, the lowest start to any year since 2008.

Cash sales peaked in January 2011, when cash transactions accounted for 46.6 percent of total home sales nationally. Prior to the housing crisis, the cash sales share of total home sales averaged approximately 25 percent. If the cash sales share continues to fall at the same rate it did in February 2016, the share should hit 25 percent by mid-2018.

Real estate-owned (REO) sales had the largest cash sales share in February 2016 at 59.2 percent. Resales had the next highest cash sales share at 35.6 percent, followed by short sales at 32.6 percent and newly constructed homes at 15.2 percent. While the percentage of REO sales that were all-cash transactions remained high, REO transactions accounted for only 7.8 percent of all sales in February 2016. In January 2011 when the cash sales share was at its peak, REO sales represented 23.9 percent of total home sales.