What to do when your sale falls through…

Unfortunately, there is currently a sudden influx of sales properties coming back to the market, so if you have lost your buyer, what should you do?

Firstly….don’t panic!! Don’t just take a silly amount of money off the house and don’t just through in the towel! I know it’s very stressful moving home and when something like this happens where you have already found an onward purchase then you can panic, but all is not yet lost…

This is where Strategy comes in. Its now our job as agents to use our years of experience and come up with a plan on the best steps forward for you and your situation. Making sure you put forward if timescales or money is a priority we can build a relaunch plan around that.

Before we continue discussing your property, what do you do about your onward purchase? Well, different people will have different opinions on this – should you hide it from the agent you’re buying from and try to sell without them realising, or should you be upfront and risk losing the property?

I’m a firm believer that honesty is the best policy. If you don’t tell them and they find out, you have lost their trust and the chances are they will immediately remarket the house 😟. However, if you explain to them about the situation and request a couple of weeks’ leeway to resell, the chances are they will give you that opportunity and the seller of that property will likely respect you and trust you as a buyer much more. Then make sure you keep them posted on progress so you are overcommunicating with them

Now, back to your place… most importantly. Why has it fallen through? Was it just because a buyer changed their mind? Was it because they found something in the survey? Did something come up in the legal work? Was the property down valued? 📉There are so many reasons for losing a buyer but you have to make sure you don’t just ignore why it’s happened. If it’s because of a survey, it’s worth getting an expert in to check out the problem and write you a report. If it was a problem on the legal side of things, speak to your solicitor to see how you can rectify things for the next sale. If the house was down valued, ask your agent to prepare comparables to justify the price in readiness for the next surveyor. Get prepared for these problems to come up again, don’t just bury your head in the sand and hope it gets missed next time!

Next, ask your agent to do more research on the price and to find more comparables to ensure you are relaunching at the right price. The market is certainly changing at the moment and so your pricing strategy might need to change. If you were on the market before with loads of interest and lots of competing offers, hopefully you won’t need to make any substantial changes. However, if it was slow before, I would seriously consider changing your strategy to “price to entice” and make sure you get lots of interest again to achieve a great result but without leaving you (and potentially a chain) in limbo for too long. Remember, a change to your marketing price does not necessarily mean a change to your own price expectations, it’s just a different strategy to try and achieve the same result! 💰

Then it’s over to the agent to look over their database, revisit any other offers you may have previously received and explain the situation to them – would they like to reinstate their offer? They should also try and book in some viewings from people who are seeing or offering on other homes similar to yours as they are clearly motivated buyers. Time for a bit of proactivity from your agent and you might get a result before you even hit the open market again!

I had a property recently in Stratford which fell through following a change in buyer circumstances, we had received a lot of offers on this house when we first went to market so, rather than launching it straight back onto the open market I contacted everyone who had offered before and explained the situation. We had the property back under offer within 9 days, after people had revisited and the seller is now incredibly relieved to not have incurred any major delays 😃

Now, and this bit is important, if you do have to go back onto the open market, make sure your agent has a plan! They need to change the photos around so it’s not the same front shot as before (which many people will have already seen and will probably remember) 📸 and also check over the write up to make sure it’s all accurate – especially if you’re changing the price, it’s amazing how many properties I see listed which have clearly changed the price as the first line of the description states the ORIGINAL guide price, not the updated price! Silly mistake and a real giveaway 🤦‍♀️

Ultimately, it’s really important that your agent handles your fall through with tact and advises you on the best way to move forward. If they just stick you back online, wait and hope for the best, you’re very likely to lose money this time around and it will increase your chances of losing any onward purchase as well 😫

If you find yourself in this position at the moment and want some guidance on the best steps to take now, drop me a message and I’d be more than happy to offer you some personal advice 😊