5 Major Reasons Your House Sale Can Fall Through

Whether you’re a real estate investor or casual property owner, selling your house is a big step. It should be the moment you cash in and secure a profit. Unfortunately, selling properties isn’t as straightforward as it should be. A wave of factors can influence how long your house stays on the market – such as economic conditions.

More specifically, problems can happen during the selling process. Don’t be fooled into thinking that securing a buyer will immediately mean your house gets sold. It can fall through at any moment due to a host of things. Today, we’re looking at all of the main reasons your house sale can fall through – and what to do about each situation.

Financing problems

Recent statists show that 37% of US households don’t have a home mortgage to pay. In other words, 63% of households are bought with a mortgage. This means there’s a high chance your prospective buyer needs home financing.

In a lot of cases, this isn’t a problem. But, financing can be the main reason many deals fall through. What typically happens is the buyer applies for a mortgage yet doesn’t get approved. Or, they get approval for less than intended. When this is the case, they can’t afford your home at the value agreed.

So, you have no choice but to close the deal and wait for another buyer. It’s kind of unavoidable, but there is one idea to help reduce the chances of this happening. Only accept bids from buyers that prove they have the money handy. Either they have the cash in hand or there’s evidence of a mortgage approval to buy the house. Always do this before you enter any of the contract stuff and start getting excited about the sale.

Hidden home issues

As a seller, the responsibility is on your shoulders to conduct a thorough home inspection. You should uncover all issues and make a note of them. From here, you can either fix the problems or leave them. If you choose the latter, be sure to note all of the issues for prospective buyers to see.

Sales unravel when houses have hidden issues that weren’t disclosed by the seller. A buyer is interested, so they get their own inspection done. All of a sudden, they discover a major structural problem that forces them to back out.

Just like that, the sale is over.

Take extra care to conduct a detailed home inspection before your house is on the market. Inspect it during all weather conditions as well, just to be more thorough. Of course, you should hire a surveyor to do this as they know what to look for. Highlight any problems when listing your property or choose to fix them and you will avoid this catastrophe.

Challenges to your appraisal

Following on from above, hidden house issues won’t always instantly ruin a sale. Sometimes, they just throw a spanner in the works. The buyer spots a problem and challenges your appraisal. They still want to buy the house but for a much lower price.

The same thing can happen without any home inspection issues too. Sometimes, buyers try to save money by appraising your home and saying it’s not worth what you’re asking. They want to force you to lower the price. If you stand strong, it can often mean they walk away.

There are so many things that can go wrong during an appraisal challenge. If you don’t know the correct way to negotiate, you will lose a sale. This is why it helps to work with a real estate attorney who can handle this for you. Their legal experience means they can negotiate a deal that keeps everyone happy. Often, you can be so stuck in your ways that you don’t want to budge on the appraisal value. But, it actually might be in your best interests to lower the price. As long as you still make money and don’t undervalue your property, it’s fine. After all, selling for slightly less than you hoped is better than no sale at all.

Another way to avoid this problem is by pricing your home correctly. A common mistake is pricing it too low to attract lots of buyers. Here, you leave no wiggle room. If someone wants to negotiate and drop the price a bit, you can’t afford to. Pricing it slightly above what you want to sell it for is the best option. Make it still sit in an attractive price range, but now you can drop it during negotiations. It makes the buyer feel like they’re getting a deal when really you’re still getting what you hoped.

Problems with the title

As you are drawing up contracts, you have to get the title/deed ready to hand over. This means establishing things like the property’s boundaries, any mortgages, liens, or other claims the buyer needs to be aware of.

A lot of the time, there are no issues. The title is perfectly fine and the sale goes through smoothly. However, it’s possible for problems to arise. A big issue is someone searching for the title online and discovering it has claims on it or the boundaries aren’t as big as expected. This can cause a sale to fall through the roof and leave you with another thing on your plate.

It’s a good idea to check the title before you sell the house. Be aware of everything it contains so you can address them ahead of time. It will prevent cases when a buyer pulls out unexpectedly.

Buyer’s or seller’s remorse

Finally, house sales can fall through due to either party experiencing remorse. It’s hard to say which is more likely to happen. Buyers can feel remorse or change their minds as they see a nicer property somewhere. Or, they realize the house needs too much work and will be too expensive. Sellers can have second thoughts due to personal attachments or thinking they’ll get a better offer another time.

Can you do much to stop buyer’s/seller’s remorse from affecting your sale? Yes, you can. For buyer’s remorse, ensure that you’re on top of the selling process. Make everything run as smoothly as possible, so the buyer breezes through and doesn’t have a chance to spot something else or think twice about the purchase. The longer a sale drags on, the more chance there is of a buyer pulling out. Especially if you are the reason it’s taking so long.

As for seller’s remorse, there’s one simple solution. When you are about to sell your home, be 100% sure you’re ready. Do you want to sell it? Would you rather wait for a better moment? As an example, what if you put your house on the market when the conditions are bad? Nobody wants to buy a house, so the prices are low. Finally, someone sounds interested. It gets to the contract stage and you realize you’re losing money. So, you pull out. This could all be avoided if you just waited for better market conditions to sell your house!

Don’t let your house sale fall through!

Clearly, all sorts of things can stop your home from selling. And this only looks at issues when a bid has been submitted and accepted. There are countless other factors that stop you from even reaching this point. Being aware of the major issues can help you stay on top of them. In most instances, you can do things to stop these problems from preventing a nice and easy sale.

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