Why Cash Wins the Bid

A mortgage-dependent offer carries conditions a cash offer does not. It depends on an appraisal meeting the contract price, on underwriting approval, and on the lender funding on schedule. Any of these can delay or unwind the sale. A cash offer carries none of them and can close in about a week, against the 30 to 45 days a financed purchase typically requires.[2]

To a seller, speed and certainty have value. Two offers at the same price are not equal when one can fall through on financing and the other cannot. A family that needs a mortgage often loses even after matching the price. The disadvantage is structural, not a matter of effort or creditworthiness.

Foreign Buyers Bring Cash

Foreign buyers pay all-cash at 47%, against about 28% for U.S. buyers overall.[1] In 2024-2025 they purchased 78,100 U.S. homes worth $56 billion.[1] Those purchases are concentrated in a handful of high-demand markets - Florida (21%), California (15%), and Texas (10%)[1] - so their effect on the households competing there is larger than the national totals suggest.

Foreign Residential Purchases by Source Country, 2024-2025

Dollar value of U.S. home purchases, top five source countries

China
$13.7B
Canada
$6.2B
Mexico
$4.4B
India
$2.2B
United Kingdom
$2.0B

Source: National Association of Realtors, International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate[1]

Institutions Do the Same at Scale

Institutional investors pay cash as a matter of practice, and they concentrate their buying in specific metros. By 2022, 32 institutional investors collectively held 450,000 single-family homes.[3] In the markets where they focused, their share of single-family rentals is substantial: about 25% in Atlanta, 21% in Jacksonville, and 18% in Charlotte.[3]

Institutional Investor Share of Single-Family Rentals, by Metro

Cash-funded institutional buying is concentrated in fast-growing Sunbelt markets

Atlanta
25%
Jacksonville
21%
Charlotte
18%

Source: U.S. Government Accountability Office, GAO-24-106643[3]

The Same Homes, the Same Markets

Foreign cash and institutional cash concentrate in the same fast-growing metros where owner-occupant demand is strongest. In those markets, a family with a mortgage is not competing on price alone. It is competing against buyers who can waive the financing contingency and close in a week.[1][3]

Policy Connection

The cash advantage is not a market that families can out-save. It is a structural feature of who is allowed to bid. Two of the Act's five proposals remove the largest cash bidders from the owner-occupant market:

  • -Policy 1 ends corporate and institutional ownership of single-family homes, removing the cash-funded investors that concentrate in Atlanta, Jacksonville, and Charlotte.
  • -Policy 4 ends foreign ownership of residential property, closing off the all-cash foreign purchases concentrated in Florida, California, and Texas.

With those bidders removed, a family that needs a mortgage competes against other owner-occupants rather than against cash it cannot match.

Sources

  1. National Association of Realtors: International Transactions in U.S. Residential Real Estate - Foreign buyer all-cash share, purchase volume and value, source countries, and geographic concentration
  2. National Association of Realtors: Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers - U.S. buyer all-cash share and financing patterns among owner-occupant buyers
  3. U.S. Government Accountability Office: GAO-24-106643 - Institutional investor holdings and single-family rental concentration by metro
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