SWFL housing market sees uptick in homes paid in cash

An outrageous amount of people are paying cash for homes in Florida, and we learned at least 25% of the homes sold in the state in April were all cash buys.

While that’s great for sellers, we looked at what it means for people purchasing a home.

Real estate broker Kerry Constantine said she’s seen a house sell for hundreds of thousands more than the asking price. She went from scheduling viewings every 30 minutes to 15 minute, then just open houses because the demand for homes is so high.

“It is making it a lot harder for just, you know, regular families and younger people to … buy a home,” Constantine said.

That goes for recently engaged couple Nealy Kehres and Brady Baldree.

“The first house that we put an offer in on, we got beat out by a cash offer that was 15 grand over asking price,” Kehres said. “So that was a discouraging start, and things haven’t really gotten better since then.”

Realtors told us 25% to 35% — in some cases 40% — of their sales are cash, and Constantine said more than 50% of hers are cash.

“The process is emotionally draining, getting your hopes up every time you see a house and put in an offer,” Kehres said.

The engaged couple is putting their dream on hold.

“It got to a point like after we had been hunting really hard, working with our realtor, putting in a lot of offers, going to see a lot of houses, and every single time just immediately getting beat out by a really high cash offer,” Kehres said. “We have gotten to the point where we’re kind of taking a break right now from doing it.”

Constantine doesn’t think the market will return to normal soon until new construction gets back to normal first. A shortage in construction materials remains for the time being.