Dive Brief:

• Buyers plunking down all cash for houses accounted for 45% of U.S. transactions in August, RealtyTrac's numbers showed.
• The chunk of sales to institutional investors – anyone who has bought at least 10 homes in the preceding 12 months – was 10%.
• In Las Vegas, 66% of the sales in August were cash deals.

Dive Insight:

The percentage of all-cash purchases has been rising since May and has been following the cost of fixed-rate, 30-year mortgages, with buyers apparently calculating that they can get better returns by investing in the houses than by borrowing and using their cash elsewhere. The rise in institutional purchases suggests that those buyers see the demands for rental homes holding steady.