How Long Does It Take To Sell A Home?

When selling a home, once your house is on the market, we all cross our fingers that offers will come flooding in and everything will be wrapped up as quickly as possible, but how long does it take on average to sell a home?

Post Office Money and the Centre for Economic and Business Research carried out research looking into the average time it takes to sell a home in 22 of the major cities throughout the UK.

The findings of this research showed that Edinburgh is the fastest place to sell a home, with most properties only being on the market for an average of 41 days. Similar results were found elsewhere in Scotland as Glasgow was the 2nd fastest city to sell a home at an average selling time of 50 days and in 3rd place was the city of Bristol showing a 61 day average before agreeing on an offer.

It has been suggested that properties within these cities move so quickly due to their price range and are more suited to first-time buyers that are willing to be more flexible on the location of their first home.

The research found that Belfast was the slowest of the major cities to sell a home and average selling times were around 119 days. Liverpool and London also featured at the lower end of the table, averaging at 112 and 111 days respectively, as it seems the more densely populated areas of the UK present more competition amongst other homes on the market.

The market has seen a bit of a slowdown in activity in recent months due to the questions surrounding the UK economy as Brexit negotiations continue and property prices are still rising, showing a 5% increase throughout the UK over the last year. Both of these factors could be linked to some of the slower cities, more populated by second steppers possibly taking a more patient approach to the market.

Managing Director at Post Office Money, Owen Woodley offered his comments on the results. “Against a backdrop of muted but steady increases in house prices across the country and sustained demand from the FTB market, these movements in time to sell reflect the changes in the number of properties listed for sale in cities across the UK. We know from previous research that first-time buyers are taking a flexible approach to finding an affordable home, most especially towards location.”