More than one-third of the houses purchased in California in 2012 were all-cash sales, a record for such transactions. DataQuick said today that there were 145,797 condos and houses purchased in the state without benefit of a mortgage, 32.4 percent of all sales. In 2011, which was also a record year, there were 125,812 such sales or 30.4 percent of the total. Cash sales have represented an average of 15.6 percent of sales each year since 1991 when DataQuick began collecting data. DataQuick attributed the sales to high investor interest, a difficult mortgage environment, and perceived higher returns on investments.