Suze Cumming is the founder of The Nature of Real Estate and Canada’s thought leader when it comes to negotiation in real estate. Suze answers agents’ questions on the first Friday of the month about negotiation tactics and working through tricky situations. Have a question for Suze? Send her an email.

 

There’s a pattern playing out in this market that many agents are feeling but may not fully understand.

Buyers hesitate to enter the market. They remain on the sidelines longer. They struggle to commit. And even when they find a property, write an offer and get it accepted, something often unravels during the conditional period. Uncertainty and remorse can set in and, with loosely worded conditions, buyers feel they can walk away without responsibility or consequences.

If you step back and look at it honestly, it makes complete sense.

The market has shifted. The world feels uncertain. The media amplifies risk because risk captures attention. Buyers are absorbing all of it while trying to make one of the largest financial and emotional decisions of their lives.

Humans don’t make big decisions easily in stable times. In uncertain times, it becomes exponentially harder.

What many agents are seeing is not just hesitation, it’s a lack of decision confidence, and many agents are not equipped to manage it.

There’s a tendency for buyer’s agents who are desperate for a sale to undermine their buyer’s confidence. Saying things like “you have the power” or “you can get out of the deal on the conditions” weakens the buyer’s ability to make responsible decisions and reinforces their uncertainty.

To be direct: good properties are still in demand and sellers still have leverage in the right situations.

What has changed is not just the balance of power but the emotional complexity surrounding the decision — and that requires a different kind of skill.

 

From the buyer agent’s side

 

As a buyer agent, the work begins much earlier than most people think. While it’s tempting to start with showings and hope something sticks, this fails to develop the relationship, encourage commitment and build trust.

There are plenty of people curious about real estate right now. After several years of low sales, there is pent-up demand. But converting curiosity into commitment is a nuanced negotiation.

Jumping straight to viewing homes skips the crucial step that determines whether a deal will hold.

The real work is understanding how buyers see the world: what concerns them, what’s influencing their thinking and what this move really means in their lives.

Resist telling them it’s a good time to buy. Telling erodes trust just when you need it most.

Build a strategy. Not a casual “we’ll see what comes up” approach, but a clear, intentional path forward that fits who they are as a buyer.

A buyer looking for a high-demand property in a competitive neighbourhood needs a very different approach than someone looking for value in an oversupplied segment.

When you slow this down and build it properly, two things happen. They start to understand the market in a way that feels real, not theoretical. And they start to see you differently, not as someone opening doors but as someone who knows how to navigate complexity. That’s where confidence begins.

By the time you reach the offer stage, most of the important work should already be done. Not just in terms of property selection or pricing strategy, but in how the buyer feels about the process itself.

Making an offer is a serious commitment and should be treated that way.

When agents try to lower the emotional barrier to making an offer by saying things like “It’s conditional — you can always get out of it,” they are derailing the deal before it’s even begun. On the surface, it sounds harmless, even helpful, but it quietly undermines the seriousness of the decision and sets the stage for what happens next.

A buyer who enters a contract without fully owning the decision is a buyer who will look for a way out once the weight of it sets in and it will set in.

The conditional period is not just procedural. It’s psychological. This is where buyers start to process what they’ve done. They revisit assumptions. They question their judgment. They seek outside opinions.

If the foundation hasn’t been built properly, this is where the deal begins to fracture — not because something is wrong with the property but because something is unstable in the decision.

When the process has been handled well, the conditional period looks very different. Inspections are done for their intended purpose of identifying material issues, not creating doubt. Financing is either secured or not. Legal review leads to adjustments, not derailment. It becomes what it was always meant to be: a rational step in a well-considered process.

But when it hasn’t been handled well — when the strategy is loose, the conversations are casual and the decision was never fully anchored — you see something else entirely. Hesitation turns into anxiety. Questions turn into second-guessing. Conditions become escape routes. And deals collapse that never should have been written in the first place.

There’s a discipline required here that not enough agents are willing to hold: to slow things down when needed, to have the harder conversations early, to treat the offer not as a low-risk step forward but as a meaningful commitment.

It’s not always comfortable, especially in a market where deals are harder to come by, but it is the only responsible and professional process.

 

From the listing agent’s side

 

A conditional deal is not a deal. It’s a fragile agreement between two parties, one of whom may still be unsure.

A strong listing agent will work to establish the credibility of the buyer and the strength of their decision confidence. This happens through communication between the listing and buying agent, through background research and through information gathered during offer negotiations. This information determines the risk factor for the seller and whether they should enter into a conditional contract.

The best listing agents don’t cross their fingers and hope the buyer’s agent has done their work.

Once a conditional contract is agreed to, the listing agent should stay aware and connected, watching for subtle signs that something is shifting on the other side. They should consciously work to maintain their seller client’s power in the negotiations by establishing and maintaining a strong BATNA — a back-up plan.

Clear communication and collaboration are essential parts of this delicate process. Not pressure, because pressure at this stage rarely holds a deal together.

What we’re dealing with right now isn’t just a tougher market. It’s a more human one: more emotional, more uncertain, more revealing.

And the agents who are adapting are not the ones who push harder or talk more. They’re the ones who understand what it takes for someone to make and hold onto a difficult decision.