The statistics track the moment a property is listed on Rightmove to the point it’s marked as officially ‘sold’ at the HM Land Registry.
As shown in the table below, properties were selling the fastest in Bath (BA1), Frome (BA11) and Warminster (BA12) adopting a minimum number of 35 property sales in a given area. In the top 10 areas, the data revealed that homes took 113.60 days (16.23 weeks) to sell on average.
Homes were selling the slowest in the Towcester (NN12), Peacehaven (BN10) and Macclesfield (SK11) postcodes (also sampling a minimum data set of 35 property sales). In the bottom 10 postcodes, the data showed that properties were taking 131.80 days (18.83 weeks) to sell on average.
Ruban Selvanayagam, Property Solvers co-founder, commented: “Despite the broad level of inactivity under the first COVID-19 lockdown, the estate agency industry has recovered relatively quickly.”
“Whilst buyer demand certainly hasn’t waned as many predicted, the time for house transactions to complete has certainly lengthened.
“Many solicitors, mortgage brokers and other professionals in our sector have been working from home which has often resulted in further administrative and other operational delays. However, with restrictions gradually being lifted, and more people returning to the office, the property buying and selling process should hopefully accelerate.
Nonetheless, Selvanayagam concluded, many of the processes remain slow and archaic – “an issue that’s likely to continue post-pandemic.”
