The number of all cash transactions peaked in Jan. 2011, accounting for over 46 percent of total home sales. In September of this year, cash sales represented a much smaller portion of total sales with a 32.5 percent share, according to CoreLogic, which reported a year-over-year percentage point decline of 3.4.

From August to September, cash sales ticked up 0.2 percentage points, but CoreLogic researchers disregarded the increase as negligible, writing that “the cash sales share typically increases month over month in September.” However, this is the third straight month of month-over-month increases. Since July, cash sales are up 1.7 percentage points.

In Boston, cash sales remained well below the 25 percent standard set in the years preceding the crisis. After falling 4 percent year-over-year, the city’s cash sales share was only 18.9 percent – one of the lowest in the country – while the state’s was similarly low at 23 percent.