I'm Dan Polimino with coloradodreamhouse.com in this week's market update for the first week of March. Happy Spring everybody! Alright, this week we're talking about a very shocking statistic that I heard about this week. A particular company tracks how many deals actually fall through a brokerage firm.

This time last year, whether it was on the listing side or the buying side, they had about 6% of their deals not go through. Fast forward one year later, same timeframe, it has spiked to 32% of the deals not going through. I talk to agents all over the country, I talk to them here in Colorado and they are all singing a very similar story -- a record amount of deals not closing. At one time under contract, it looked promising but they didn't close. Which then begs the question, why is it even occurring? The answer can be summed up in one word -- fear. Fear is why deals aren't getting done and it's by all parties. It's fear by lending institutions. Their guidelines get stricter. Who they're going to lend to gets tougher and it's fear that they’re maybe handing out loans that they shouldn’t be handing out and getting caught with them.

It's fear by buyers who are always concerned that they've paid too high a price, that they've bought a lemon of a house, that they should have waited. It's fear by sellers that they’re going to get taken to the cleaners. They're not going to be able to sell their house. They may have to go to foreclosure or bankruptcy. It's fear all the way around. Yes, it's fear by real estate agents wondering whether or not they'll even be able to stay in the business.

We have to put a clamp on fear. How do you do it? Well actually, I'm going to leave that up to you. I look forward to hearing your responses to this blog post on how we put a clamp on fear. If you have any questions about buying, selling or investing in real estate, feel free to call me at coloradodreamhouse.com. Have a great week.