Faster Transactions - property transaction timeline reduces

Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, market delays have been on the rise. However, new research from GetAgent shows that these delays have significantly reduced.

By tracking the average time it takes to sell a home across England and Wales, based on the point a property is listed for sale and the time the sale is complete, Get Agent was able to accumulate these results.

Overall, the results show that over the last six months the average time to sell a property is 248 days. In total, this means that the speed of property transactions has reduced by an average of 58 days during the previous six months.

Regions with the largest reduction

Transactions in the North East took 284 days, making it the location with the longest time on average to sell at a regional level. London experienced around 277 transactions, the East of England had 259 transactions, the West Midlands took 213 days, Wales took 225 days and Yorkshire and the Humber took 228 days. 

According to the estate agent comparison website, the location with the largest reduction in the time taken to sell a home was Wales. During the last six months, this was reduced by 83 days.

London properties took roughly 76 days to sell, while the West Midlands took 68 days, meaning these two locations also had some of the most prominent drops in the time they took to sell. 

Quickest reductions at a local level 

Taking only 142 days on average, Dartford and the Castle point are two locations in Essex home to some of the quickest property sale times.

Along the west of Wales is Ceredigion, a location that saw the largest reduction in the average time to sell. On average properties sold around 235 days quicker over the last six months. 

Contrary to these results, South Lakeland took roughly 582 days on average to sell in current market conditions, making it one of the largest increases in the last six months. Trailing closely behind is Denbighshire with the average sale is taking 205 days longer. 

Founder and chief executive officer of GetAgent.co.uk, Colby Short, further explains: “What we essentially witnessed throughout much of the pandemic was the perfect storm of factors to delay the sale of homes across the UK. An initial industry lockdown followed by working from home restrictions, furlough and redundancies, meant that the property sector was very much on the back foot from the off.”

“This wasn’t made any easier due to numerous and ever-changing Covid workplace protocols and then the introduction of the stamp duty holiday led to an overwhelming level of buyer activity hitting the sector like a ton of bricks.” 

“When you factor in the archaic legal process that hampers transactions at the best of times, the outcome was only ever going to be a considerable build-up in sales waiting to complete and huge delays to the time it takes to sell.”

“However, it certainly looks as though we’ve turned a corner and while it would be inaccurate to say homes are selling particularly fast in the current market, the time it’s taking to sell has certainly dropped and by quite some margin in some areas.”