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More than a quarter of property sales collapsed in 2024. Here’s why.

Annabel Dixon Annabel Dixon

The most common reason for sales falling through last year? Buyers pulling out or failing to renegotiate the purchase price following a property survey.

Getting a property sale over the line can be stressful at the best of times. So, spare a thought for the buyers and sellers whose transactions collapse just before completion.

That was the grim reality for many people last year, with 28.8% of sales falling through in 2024, according to Quick Move Now’s data.

The good news is, the annual fall-through rate has been edging down in recent years. And it’s significantly down on 2020 during the pandemic, when 43% of property sales collapsed.

The main cause of fall-throughs last year was buyers pulling out or failing to renegotiate the purchase price as a result of a property survey, accounting for 27.3% of collapses.

When purse strings are tight, it’s little wonder that ominous discoveries, such as a leaky roof, can be a major stumbling block.

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Lili Oliver, of Oliver Roth, a Bristol buying agent, explains: ‘A survey is probably the most contentious reason for a sale to fall through, as often a vendor will be very protective of their home. They may even require every penny from their sale in order to justify their onward move.’

But artful negotiation and common sense can help keep transactions on track, adds Oliver: ‘Talking to all parties in the chain and explaining the many benefits to adapting to the change of circumstances can often save sales from falling through based on survey results alone.’

“Owners were worried that the buyers were delaying and hedging their bets”

What else prompted property sales to fall through last year? Well, 23.6% of buyers pulled out of deals after having a change of heart.

Oliver recalls an owner who ‘cracked on with the purchase despite falling out of love with it, preferring to pay an inordinate amount of stamp duty in order to save face’.

She says: ‘In that instance, my client benefitted as the house rapidly returned to the market and we were able to snap it up on their behalf — but I would like to believe had it been our client who had changed their mind, we would have advised them to bite the bullet and walk away.’

Other factors that contributed to sales falling through in 2024 included:

  • buyers struggling to secure a mortgage (21.8%)
  • sellers accepting a higher offer (14.5%)
  • property chains breaking (7.3%)
  • sellers pulling out due to slow progress (5.5%).

With political upheaval and some pretty gusty economic headwinds last year, it was a bumpy ride for buyers and sellers.

Richard Winter, of Richard Winter Surrey Property Search, says that ‘several buyers made knee jerk reactions to offer and agree sales’.

‘Once they had time to reflect and as time passed, the market started to feel trickier. I was made aware of several properties that were under offer and owners were worried that the buyers were delaying and hedging their bets,’ Winter explains.

‘Some of these deals fell through at the end of the year and especially after Rachel Reeves announced her Autumn Budget.’

This chimes with Quick Move Now’s data, which shows that the percentage of sales that collapsed in the last three months of the year stood at 33%.

According to Zoopla, buyers became more price-sensitive in the wake of the Autumn Budget and growing uncertainty about what was on the horizon for mortgage rates. The property portal’s update at the end of 2024 revealed that buyers were agreeing sales at 3.6% below asking prices. That’s up from 3.2% in July.

Quick Move Now buys properties directly and then re-sells them on the open market via estate agents. The firm transacts around 200-300 properties each year. It says that its wide range of property types and property values make it a ‘representative snapshot of the housing market as a whole’.