"The most common reasons for fall-throughs is overvaluing - which leads the buyer to insist on negotiating the price down while the seller remains stubborn - and a lack of upfront information being provided for potential buyers"
- Ruth Beeton - Home Sale Pack
New research from Home Sale Pack reveals that in current market conditions, detached homes are more likely to return to the market compared to any other property type, accounting for almost 40% of relisted for-sale stock.
Home Sale Pack analysed data on the number of homes returning to the market for sale, which property types were most likely to be relisted and how this has changed over the last year.
There are a number of reasons a home may return to the market having previously been listed for sale and then removed.
It can be the seller’s own decision. For example, they were struggling to get any buyer attention so decided to unlist the property and wait for the market to improve. But most commonly the seller is forced back to market because a previously agreed sale has collapsed.
Perhaps the buyer’s survey highlighted a serious problem with the property, or perhaps the buyer had financing issues. Whatever the reason, the seller thinks they have secured a sale but it falls through, and so the home has to go back on the market.
The latest figures reveal that an estimated 4,321 homes currently listed for sale have returned to the market having previously been up for grabs.
Detached properties make up the largest proportion of these homes, with 1,709 accounting for 39.6% of the national whole.
Flats accounted for 25.2% of returning properties, followed by semi-detached (22%), and terraced homes (13.3%).
As for the annual change of these proportions, detached houses again top the table with the number of them returning to market increasing by +5.1% since February 2023 when they accounted for 34.5% of the total.
The annual proportion change for terraced homes is -1.2%, while the proportion of semi-detached homes and flats fell by -1.8% and -2.1% respectively.
Why do so many detached homes end up back on the market?
While there is, and always will be good demand for upsizers, family homes, further data analysis from Home Sale Pack suggests that the reason for so many of them having to return to the market starts with unrealistic seller price expectations.
Of all property types analysed, detached homes are the only ones that return to the market with asking prices above and beyond the average for similar properties in the same area.
In February 2024, the average price for a returning detached home was £475,000 which is 10.9% higher than the average price for similar properties in the same area (£428,499).
This suggests that detached sellers are unwilling to budge on price despite cooler market conditions and this is therefore leading to greater complications and subsequent fall-throughs.
In comparison, returning flats come to the market priced -10.5% below the comparable average, terraced homes come in -9.5% below average, and semi-detached homes return to the market priced -3.7% below the comparable average.
Ruth Beeton, Co-Founder of Home Sale Pack, says: “There is any number of reasons why a property may return to the market, but in the vast majority of cases it will be due to a collapsed sale.
"In some instances, a collapsed sale can be unavoidable, such as a change in the life circumstances of the expected buyer.
"But perhaps the most common reasons for fall-throughs is overvaluing - which leads the buyer to insist on negotiating the price down while the seller remains stubborn - and a lack of upfront information being provided for potential buyers.
“Without being given the information they need at the start of the journey, buyers are forced to go and find it for themselves which takes a long time and costs a lot of money. As such, significant issues with the property are revealed far too late which leads the buyer to pull out or insist on a price reduction. This leads the sale to collapse and the seller is forced reluctantly back onto the market to start the painful process all over again.”
