JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A lot of people looking to buy a house are getting cold feet or opting for a better opportunity after a contract becomes pending.
That is happening frequently in Jacksonville as the River City is among the top cities where home sale cancellations are happening, according to a recent report.
Buyers are also finding better deals, which shows negotiating power is getting stronger.
But people selling their homes are wishing the roles were reversed.
A Redfin report shows that five cities in Florida were on the top 10 list where deals fell through the most throughout the month of April.
Jacksonville ranked eighth on the list.
Orlando, Tampa and Miami were in the top five, and Fort Lauderdale came in sixth.
Atlanta led the country with the most home sale cancellations that month, with 1 in 5 sales falling through, according to Redfin.
Economists say a lot of buyers are getting cold feet about going through with a deal because of economic uncertainty. More houses are going on the market over the last year, but this comes as buyers are still dealing with historically high mortgage rates and costs.
Amy Dobrikova and her family live in Jacksonville and are expecting to sell their home in July.
The road to sell has not been easy.
For almost a year, several potential buyers backed out of their contracts.
“I think what is happening is in these nice neighborhoods, you have many homes on the market and one person is desperate and drops the price drastically,” Dobrikova said. “Then people are panicking because they are like, ‘I don’t know if I want to lose that much on my house.’ I think people are pulling out and are going to wait until the market levels out.”
The Dobrikovs put their house on the market more than 10 months ago, and the listing shows the pricing continued to change over that time.
Dobrikova says her husband, Stefan Dobrikov, who is a realtor, had to lower the price on their home several times because of deals falling through.
“Interest rates play into a lot of that,” she said. “Jacksonville is still a growing city. People are still moving here. I think that we just had to ride the wave a little bit in this season. But the market is picking up. We were having open houses every weekend. We were seeing more and more people come through, and more and more people thinking about selling their homes and buying. I think the market will catch up really soon this summer, and we will see a different outcome in Jacksonville.”
Researchers found 56,000 home sales were canceled in April across the United States, which is nearly 1% higher than the same period last year.
Economists say rising insurance costs are making buyers take a step back and evaluate their options.
Buyers usually don’t know what their insurance costs are going to be until after the deal goes pending. That can lead to sticker shock or not being able to get insurance at all.
Other cities that made the Top 10 list for most home sale cancellations include: Riverside, California; Fort Worth, Texas; San Antonio, Texas; and Las Vegas, Nevada.
