Near-record-high home prices and spiking interest rates aren’t just driving home sales down to their lowest levels in well over a decade—they’re also increasingly leading more buyers who actually had offers accepted to drop out of their agreements as they reassess their budgets and find homeownership doesn’t necessarily fit anymore.
An estimated 53,000 home purchase agreements fell through in September, over 16% of homes that went into contract that month, according to real estate brokerage Redfin. That’s the highest rate of cancellations—defined as pending sales that fell out of contract, as a percentage of overall pending sales—since last October.
