The MReport Webcast: Thursday 11/13/2014

All-cash transactions continued their trend of annual declines in August, accounting for a little more than a third of total home sales. According to CoreLogic, cash sales made up 33.8 percent of total home sales in August, down from 36.4 percent the year prior. Cash sales peaked at in 2011 and have fallen continually on a yearly basis every month since the start of 2013. CoreLogic's latest data follows another recent report from RealtyTrac, which showed all-cash buyers accounted for 33.9 percent of single-family home and condo sales in the entire third quarter as institutional buyers also backed off from the market.

Looking at state-level activity, Florida once again had the largest cash sales share of any state, owing to a more active investor presence. Cash sales made up nearly half of total home sales in the state in August.

Just behind Florida was Alabama with a cash sales share of 48.9 percent, followed by West Virginia, New York, and Delaware, according to CoreLogic.

Mortgage applications in the United States fell in November's opening week as interest rates ticked up. Total mortgage application volume, including both purchase loans and refinances, dipped a seasonally adjusted 0.9 percent for the week ending November 7th, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. On the refinance side, applications fell 2 percent on a weekly basis accounting for 63 percent of total application numbers. Meanwhile, the MBA's seasonally adjusted measure of purchase loan applications rose 1 percent for the week. Removing adjustments, applications for home purchases fell 2 percent, coming up 11 percent short of where they were a year ago at this time.