A very popular real estate blog this morning stated:

29% of all signed real estate contracts never make it to the closing table!

This horrible statistic made me figure Jones and Associates contract failure rate.   After all even the easiest cash transaction comes with hurdles that need to be overcome to get it to the closing table.

Jones and Associates had a contract failure rate of 9%.   This number upset us and we see any failure as an opportunity for improvement.  We are also very proud that our contract failure rate is almost a third of the average failure rate for real estate contracts.

After digging a little deeper we noticed the failed contracts we had were buyers we represented and every buyer received 100% of their earnest money back.     So we dug even deeper and looked at what could we have done to hold those contracts together and what caused them to fail.  

We reviewed each file and concluded every failed contract failed because our agents guided the buyer to do professional home inspections and unforeseen problems were found or our agents made sure our buyers knew exactly what loan terms they would end up with prior to the loan denial deadline and the buyers determined the loans were not what they wanted to move forward with.  

So the question now is: was 9% of failed contracts a failure or 9% cost of doing business to represent your buyer properly?  

My bet is the 9% of buyers we had that canceled contracts are GLAD they had Jones and Associates representing them!

 

This is a link to the blog I refer to:  http://www.kcmblog.com/2012/05/24/the-top-5-reasons-deals-fall-apart-2/