"With the impending stamp duty deadline bringing a heightened sense of activity during the first quarter of this year, the likelihood is that fall-through levels will climb as transaction levels increase"
- Adam Day - eXp UK
The latest research from eXp UK analysed the latest quarterly data on the number of fall throughs seen across the UK property market, the average cost of these fall-throughs and the total cost endured by the nation’s homebuyers and sellers as a result.
According to the figures, during Q4, some 70,641 fall-throughs took place across the UK property market. The good news for homebuyers and sellers is that this marked a 16% decline versus the previous quarter, although this figure was still some 13.2% higher versus Q4 2023.
However, the average cost of a fall through did increase in Q4 2024, hitting £3,456, up from an average cost of £3,447 the previous year.
Despite the increase seen in the average cost of a fall-through, eXp UK’s analysis shows that the total cost of fall-throughs endured by the nation’s homebuyers and sellers fell by 15.8% on a quarterly basis, with this reduction driven by the lower volume of fall-throughs seen during the quarter.
However, as with fall-through volumes themselves, this total cost to the nation still sat some 16.8% higher than Q4 2023, totalling an eye-watering £244.2m.
“The level of transactions subject to a fall through trended downwards during the final three months of last year and, as a result, the total cost endured by the nation’s homebuyers and sellers also followed suit," said head of eXp UK, Adam Day, "Whilst this is certainly good news on the face of it, it’s not unusual to observe such trends during the latter stages of the year, purely due to the lower number of transactions in the pipeline as the market winds down ahead of the Christmas break.
"With the impending stamp duty deadline bringing a heightened sense of activity during the first quarter of this year, the likelihood is that fall-through levels will climb as transaction levels increase.
"With the stamp duty deadline also bringing an increase in costs to the nation’s buyers, we could well see a spike in transactions collapsing from those who fail to complete before the deadline expires.”
