Home sales are canceled at a record rate

Home buyers are backing out of deals at a record rate , a new analysis shows.

Some 56,000 purchase agreements for homes in the United States were canceled in August, according to the online brokerage Redfin, with buyers acting “skittish and selective due to high prices, high mortgage rates and economic uncertainty .”

That’s equal to 15.1% of homes that went under contract that month, the highest percentage for August since record keeping began in 2017, up from 14.3% for the same month a year earlier. A similar record was set earlier this year.

As Redfin puts it: “Homebuyers in America are getting cold feet.”

Buyers typically change their minds during the inspection period of a sale, backing out of a deal if they can’t get a seller to “concede to their repair requests, a better home com