Fall-throughs cost agents £63m in remarketing - research

Fall-throughs are costing estate agents an estimated £63m purely based on the cost of having to remarket a property and host another round of viewings, research suggests.

Upfront information provider Home Sale Pack has analysed residential fall-through data from TwentyCI and measured it against the estimated cost to the agent when they have to remarket a home they thought had already sold.

The data shows that in 2023, there were an estimated 269,728 fall-throughs in the UK. 

This is down 14.5% annually but with an average commission of 1.5%, that means the 269,728 transactions that did fall through equate to £1.2bn in lost or delayed earnings, according to the research.

But lost commission isn’t the only cost that agents incur due to fall-throughs. 

When a sale falls-through, agents often have to spend time relisting and remarketing a property. Once they have, there is also the cost incurred of conducting the viewings process all over again. 

It is estimated that the average viewing costs an agent £23.35, based on the time each viewing takes out of their day, and the travel costs of getting to and from the appointment. 

It is also estimated that to sell a home requires an average of 10 viewings, which means total viewings costs hit an average of £233.43 per property. 

Multiply this by the number of annual fall-throughs and Home Sale Pack estimates that agents spent £63m in 2023 alone on conducting viewings for properties they thought they had already secured a buyer for. 

Ruth Beeton, co-founder of Home Sale Pack, said: “The good news is that fall-through rates have declined in the past year, but this decline has only come due to a reduction in market activity, not an improvement in the certainty of the home selling process. 

“It’s not just buyers and sellers who are left frustrated and out of pocket when a sale collapses, it also impacts estate agents, who have to begin the marketing process all over again, costing them both time and money in the process. 

“Fall-throughs are often caused by two things above everything else - the late discovery of important information and buyers or sellers getting cold feet - both of which become increasingly likely the longer the transaction drags on.

“We believe that fall-through numbers will radically decline, and do so permanently rather than sporadically, if buyers are simply presented with the most important information they require from the very start. This can be achieved through the better collection and distribution of upfront information on the side of the seller.”