Increase In Time Taken To Sell Property

The stamp duty holiday created so much activity in the housing market, it led to a backlog. Therefore, when there was a desire to conclude property deals quickly, it was actually taken longer to finalise transactions.

This is something we have witnessed for ourselves at Prestige & Village. It is also something we have seen take place across the country.

Many buyers have been left frustrated in their attempts to buy property

GetAgent have looked at Land Registry figures and information from a range of property portals. They have pulled information together that shows how the time taken to sell homes increased in 2020 compared to 2019.

Across the country, for January to late November, the average time to sell property increased by 12 days.

The area which experienced the longest delays are the West Midlands, with an increase of 17 days. The East Midlands experienced an increase of 14 days while Yorkshire and the Humber experienced an increase of 15 days.

The South West of England has been relatively unchanged so far, with the average time to sell homes increasing by just one day.

There was a massive increase in the City of London, with the average time taken to sell property rising from 197 days in 2019 to 314 days in 2020. This is close to a year, a length of time that would be unacceptable for most people.

After this, the largest increases were seen in Scotland, with areas such as Stirling, Aberdeenshire, the Scottish Borders, the Highlands and Moray all experiencing a significant increase.

The largest increase in time to sell property in Wales occurred in Denbighshire, with 40 days.

Other areas which featured in the Top 20 in creases include Preston, Torbay, West Berkshire, North East Lincolnshire, North Warwickshire, Salford, Manchester and Tower Hamlets.

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This suggests that locations all across the country were affected, so it is not as if there was a regional impact; it was general.

Colby Short, Founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, commented: “Negative news on the face of it but given the turbulent year we’ve experienced, the time to sell a home was always likely to increase on last year. Lockdown restrictions stopped the market in its tracks during the spring which would have delayed pretty much every sale already in the pipeline. We’ve also seen many cogs of the selling process hit with furloughs and redundancies which have reduced their operational capacity and hindered their ability to process transactions at the same speed.”

Colby Short also said; “Finally, despite the market returning back to health at a rapid rate, huge levels of buyer demand have overwhelmed the industry and led to even further delays, mostly at the final legal hurdle of a sale. So the chances are, the time to sell may well continue to climb until the market levels outcome March next year, but the good news is, transactions are up, prices are climbing and the market is fighting fit for the year ahead.”

At Prestige & Village, we care about our community, and supporting others. We aim to provide you with as much help and assistance as we can. If you have any property or housing questions, please feel free to contact us today.