A meaningful proportion of property transactions that reach the accepted offer stage do not make it to settlement. Financing failure is the single most common cause. A buyer who was pre-approved at the time of the offer may face challenges in the formal underwriting process due to changes in their financial situation, issues with the property's appraisal, or lender concerns about the transaction structure. Sellers can reduce this risk by prioritising buyers with stronger financing credentials during the offer evaluation process, looking beyond the headline price to assess the quality of the buyer's financial position, the size of their deposit, and the credibility of their approval documentation. A slightly lower offer from a buyer with clean financing and a large deposit can be significantly less risky than a higher offer from a buyer whose financial position is less certain.

Inspection-based withdrawals are the second most common deal failure point. Buyers who discover significant structural, electrical, plumbing, or environmental issues during the due diligence period have contractual rights in most markets to renegotiate or exit the transaction. The sellers who navigate this most successfully are those who either addressed known issues before listing or who disclosed them upfront and priced accordingly. When inspection findings are genuinely new information rather than previously known problems, the negotiation that follows is more straightforward because neither party had incorporated the issue into their original position. When inspection findings reveal things the seller knew and did not disclose, the legal and financial exposure expands significantly and the transaction becomes considerably harder to save on acceptable terms.

Title issues account for a smaller but significant proportion of deal failures and are among the most preventable. A title search that reveals an unresolved mortgage from a previous owner, a contractor's lien from unpaid work, a boundary dispute, or an error in the ownership chain creates complications that must be resolved before a clear title can be transferred to the buyer. These issues take time to resolve, often weeks or months, and can push settlement dates to the point where a buyer loses patience or their financing approval expires. Sellers who commission a pre-listing title search, address any issues identified, and arrive at the offer stage with clean documentation remove this risk category almost entirely. The cost of a pre-listing title review is minor relative to the disruption of a title problem surfacing mid-transaction.

Cold feet, where a buyer simply changes their mind without a contractual basis for exiting, are less common but not unknown. The deposit structure is the primary financial deterrent against buyer withdrawal without cause, which is why the size and conditions of the deposit matter in the offer evaluation process. Sellers whose agents maintain active, professional communication with the buyer's agent throughout the closing period, providing timely responses, managing milestone deadlines efficiently, and keeping the transaction moving forward without unnecessary delays, give buyers fewer opportunities to feel uncertain or disengaged. Deals that stall through poor coordination give undecided buyers the space to reconsider. Deals that move purposefully toward a clear settlement date give those same buyers confidence that they are in good hands and that the transaction is proceeding as expected.