The number of house sales falling through has risen slightly over the past few months, according to a recent report.
The research from national home buyer Quick Move Now, which looks at the property market in England and Wales, claims that almost 28% of sales fell through before completion in the third quarter of 2017. That’s an increase of 2% from the previous quarter.
The report highlights a number of reasons for these transactions not taking place, with 26% of sales falling through because the deal was not progressing forward. In addition, 21% were prevented from moving forward due to the lender refusing borrowing. A further 21% were due to the buyer trying to renegotiate the price. The report also found that in 16% of cases, the buyer simply changed their mind, 11% were down to buyers pulling out because of survey issues, and 5% fell through for other unspecified reasons.
In addition to the quarterly results, the findings also revealed an annual rise in fall through statistics, which could indicate that the property market is being impacted by external economic factors such as Brexit. Indeed, on a yearly basis, almost 63% of non-completions happened because of hesitation on the buyer’s part.
Commenting on the research, Danny Luke, Quick Move Now’s Managing Director said: “2016 as a whole was a turbulent year for the UK property market, with external factors like the EU referendum, the triggering of Article 50 all playing their part on the fall through rate. As we reflect on Q3, it’s clear the UK property market is still full of uncertainty and instability.”
He went on to add that: “These reasons behind the house sale fall throughs would indicate a complete lack of confidence from buyers. Nearly every day, the media is reporting a property price slow-down across the UK. And with many property experts predicting this downward shift to continue as we go into 2018, I would expect buyers to become even more apprehensive in the short term.”
The new research comes as a leading auctioneer claims that vendors are turning to auctions to sell their homes as high street agents struggle to find buyers in today’s “challenging selling environment”.
