First time purchases up, cash/investor purchases down

The housing data released last week had some very good stuff in it. 

1. Cash purchases represented 24% of all deals last year (from 32% the year before)
2. Investor purchases were 14% of all deals last year (from 16%)
3. First-time purchases were up to 32% (from 27%)

The historic average of first-time buyers is 40%, so we still have room to go up there.  And with lending standards relaxing a bit, more owner-occupants will be able to enter the market.

We wrote about this here, and you can view the PIMCO article (with much more data) here.