Where First-Time Buyers Paying All Cash Get the Money, and How to Bid Against Them

One first-time buyer in ten paid for a home with no mortgage at all. That figure comes from the National Association of Realtors' 2026 buyer profile, and NPR's report calls it the highest share since NAR's data began in 2003.

Normally I would put a dollar cost on a number like that. Here I can't. None of the sources give home prices or a current mortgage rate, so there is no worked example of a cash offer against a financed one, and no monthly cost table. All of the data is from the US. None of it covers Canada. MarketWatch also ran an article on this report, but that page could not be fetched, so it was not read. The figures below come from NPR (carried by KUNC), Mortgage Professional America, and Bloomberg as carried by WealthManagement.

Who the all-cash buyers are

The median all-cash first-time buyer was 54. The median financed first-time buyer was 38, according to Mortgage Professional America's summary of the report. Jessica Lautz, NAR's deputy chief economist, told NPR: "Inheritances are really driving this."

The table shows where the money came from. The first column is the down payment sources for first-time buyers as a group. The all-cash buyers had no loan and so made no down payment. Their column shows how they funded the purchase.

Among first-time buyers, personal savings was the most common down payment source at 62%. More drew on a 401(k), stocks or crypto (30%) than on help from family or friends (25%). The median down payment was 9% of the price.

Inheritance is where the two groups split. NPR reports that 28% of all-cash first-time buyers used an inheritance, against 9% of financed buyers. Another 21% of the all-cash group used proceeds from selling a property they had inherited.

The brief for this piece also asked about home equity from an earlier sale. A first-time buyer usually has no earlier home to sell, and the sources give no home-equity figure. The nearest row is the sale of an inherited property. Stock sales show up only inside the 30% financial-assets figure, and that figure is for down payments, not for cash purchases.

Lautz tied the inheritance figures to age in Bloomberg's coverage, carried by WealthManagement: "Because people are living longer, the generation receiving that wealth is no longer young adults." You can't plan around an inheritance any more than you can plan a Winnipeg February around sunshine.

Not every cash offer is the buyer's own money. Nate Johnson, a broker in St. Louis, told NPR that some relatives are lending buyers cash to make their bids stronger, and some of those buyers later refinance to pay the family back. He estimated that roughly 3 of about 10 offers in his market may be all cash. Jason Miller, another broker quoted by NPR, pointed to high rates and to families gifting money earlier.

What a financed buyer can do

Some general background first. A financed offer depends on the loan being approved and usually on an appraisal. A cash offer depends on neither. The Mortgage Reports lists two steps aimed at that gap.

Get pre-approved, and ideally fully underwritten. The site says getting pre-approved before you make an offer "is a must."

Offer an appraisal gap guarantee. You agree to cover any shortfall if the home appraises below your bid. In the site's words, this "tells the seller you'll cover any discrepancy between the bid and the appraised value." It needs savings on top of the down payment.

None of these sources measure whether a shorter closing date helps against a cash offer, so it is left out here.

Johnson's family-loan route is borrowing from relatives, buying with cash and refinancing later. A later refinance depends on qualifying at that time and on rates at that time, and neither is known in advance. The sources don't cover how lenders treat money borrowed from family. That's a question for your lender.

If you have the cash, should you spend all of it?

National Mortgage News starts here: "With mortgage rates exceeding 7%, paying cash for a home can look more attractive than borrowing." The sources used here don't show when that article was written, and none of them gives a current rate.

Every dollar you pay in cash is a dollar you don't borrow at the mortgage rate. Against that, the article lists capital gains tax when you sell investments, lower liquidity, and lost investment opportunities. On liquidity, it quotes this line: "Liquidity is really valuable for our retirees." The table sets out each input, what the sources say about it, and whether they give a figure.

National Mortgage News reports two alternatives to going all cash. Some clients use a hybrid of roughly 50% cash and 50% financing. The other is a securities-based line of credit, which avoids selling investments to raise the cash.

For Canadian readers

Everything above is US data and US accounts. None of these sources track the share of cash buyers in Canada, so it's unknown whether Winnipeg or Toronto look anything like this.

If it were my money, I'd get fully underwritten before bidding and keep the appraisal gap savings separate from the down payment.