What happens when the contract on your home falls through?

Selling a home can be an emotional and stressful experience. You find a buyer and feel a huge sense of relief. You’re ready to pack up and move on, and then boom, your contract doesn’t make it to closing. It’s easy to feel defeated and upset, but you can bounce back.

Understand Why It Fell Through

One of the things you need to do is understand why your deal fell through. This is important so you can prevent it from happening again. Contingencies are what protect a buyer from running into often unpleasant surprises.

A few reasons why home sales fall through include:

• A home inspector finds something that would be expensive for the buyer to repair.
• Your home appraises for less than the sale price.
• There’s an open lien on your property uncovered by a title search.
• The buyer’s financing falls through.

Initially, if you run into one of the situations above, you’ll try to bring the contract back to life, but sometimes you just can’t.

Minimize Your Risk for the Next Time

So, that deal you were counting on can’t be revived, but you can do some things to minimize your risk going forward. If the home inspection was the cause, then fix or repair the biggest issues. If there was an issue with the appraisal, you’ll need to reassess your list price. Getting title insurance will reduce your risk of liens fouling up your deal. Never accept an offer that doesn’t come with a pre-approval letter, this will minimize the risk of a non-qualified buyer. Signs a buyer is going to back out can include not meeting deadlines and returning necessary paperwork, not returning calls, and making a lot of requests for contract changes. Your agent should be in regular contact with the buyer's agent and lender to confirm things are moving forward.

Evaluate Your Marketing and Your Agent

If a deal falls through, it might be through no fault of your agent, but you should still re-think your marketing plan and perhaps make sure your agent really is a good fit before you go back on the market. Maybe you make a few small updates to your home and re-do your real estate photos to give you a fresh start when you go back on the market. If you feel let down by your agent and they’ve been less than supportive in the sale of your home, you might want to find someone else. Sometimes changing agents and finding someone with a strong reputation for successfully selling homes in your specific area can make a world of difference.

If you bring in a new agent and a fresh set of eyes, you may discover that a change in marketing strategy makes all the difference. You also need to be realistic about a price change. A new agent might also be not just more aggressive in terms of pricing but also strategy. Maybe you need someone who is going to do even more to spread the word.

Don’t Be Discouraged

It’s really an emotional letdown when you think you’ve sold your home and it falls apart. Don’t let yourself get too discouraged. Bounce back by evaluating what went wrong and working to make sure those are things that don’t happen again in the future. We are here to help you from the beginning to the end. Let our team shine the spotlight on your home. Reach out and let us know how we can help you at 540-491-4222.