Cash buyers have always had an edge in real estate transactions. They're just more attractive to home sellers and their agents because a cash offer just seems more solid and serious and real. It's cash, with no strings attached. A cash offer eliminates the unknowns and snafus of the loan contingency variable, and the time it takes to process that loan, and get it approved - or not approved - through underwriting and then funded.
That's about 25 -30 days of waiting and wondering. Cash buyers can close fast, I've seen it done in 7 days. That's very tempting to a home seller.
And now with the global credit crunch making loans harder to get, more expensive and less available - added to an already slower home market - cash buyers are sitting in a very pretty place.
In the Tucson Foothills, with the average sale price of a single family home at about $700K, the availability and affordability of jumbo loans, which have been battered lately, are of particular concern.
The upside, is that this is a real window of opportunity for cash buyers in the Tucson Foothills.