The postcodes where properties are selling the fastest

If you’ve sold a house recently and it felt like it took an age, you aren’t alone. It currently takes 216 days on average to find a buyer and complete the sale of a property across Great Britain.

The average time it takes to find a buyer across England, Wales and Scotland was 62 days and the time taken to complete a purchase was 154 days in June, Rightmove finds.

Sellers with flats who have found a buyer are facing the longest wait to complete – an average of 169 days. In contrast, owners of terraced and semi-detached houses are waiting 149 days on average to complete a purchase after finding a buyer.

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Johan Svanstrom, Rightmove’s CEO said this was the longest summer wait on record.

The regions where properties are selling the fastest and slowest

The analysis reveals homes are generally much quicker to sell in the north of England and Scotland than the south of England and Wales.

It’s currently quickest to sell a home in Scotland with the time to find a buyer combined with the time to complete a purchase sitting at 127 days on average – over four months.

The second quickest place to sell a home is in the North East of England, where the total time to move home is 194 days on average.

The third quickest is Yorkshire and the Humber, with the total time to move home taking on average 207 days.

Homes take the longest to sell across Great Britain in London. It takes 70 days on average to find a buyer and 174 days to complete a purchase, a total wait of 244 days (or over eight months), Rightmove found.

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Time to sell and move home
Area	Time to find a buyer (days)	Time to complete the purchase (days)	Total time to move home on average (days)
London	70	174	244
East of England	66	171	237
South East	67	170	237
South West	69	164	233
Wales	66	155	221
Great Britain	62	154	216
West Midlands	62	153	215
North West	57	152	209
East Midlands	68	150	218
Yorkshire and The Humber	62	145	207
North East	53	141	194
Scotland	29	98	127

Source: Rightmove

The local authorities where it’s fastest and slowest to sell a home

The 10 local authorities where it’s quickest to sell a home after finding a buyer are all in Scotland, according to Rightmove.

It is quickest to complete the sale of a property in Clackmannanshire where the average wait time is 76 days, then Angus and Dumfries and Galloway where it takes 77 days on average.

The local authority where it takes the least amount of time to complete a house sale outside of Scotland is in North East Derbyshire (120 days), then North East Lincolnshire (122 days) and Chesterfield (124 days).

The time taken to complete a sale is longest in Slough (229 days), Brentwood (209 days) and Colchester (205 days).

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Local authorities where it is quickest to complete a home move
Local authority	Time to complete the purchase (days)
Clackmannanshire	76
Angus	77
Dumfries and Galloway	77
Moray	85
City of Edinburgh	86
Fife	86
West Lothian	87
East Lothian	88
Stirling	88
Scottish Borders	89

Source: Rightmove

How to speed up the house-selling process

Getting paperwork ready and in order can shave weeks of the house-selling process, said Nick Mendes, mortgage technical manager at broker John Charcol.

“Title deeds, Energy Performance Certificate, leasehold info, planning or building regulation certificates, all of it should be sat with your conveyancer on day one, not chased up after an offer lands,” he said.

It’s also worth getting a conveyancer involved before you’ve got a buyer, not after.

“Too many sellers wait until an offer’s accepted to start looking for a solicitor, and that’s time you never get back. Get the ID checks, source of funds and initial searches moving early so things can progress the second a sale is agreed.”

If you’re selling a leasehold property, you can speed up the process by extending a lease through your landlord and requesting management packs as soon as possible.

It can be harder to sell a leasehold property with less time left on a lease while lenders may be reluctant to issue a mortgage to a buyer, which can also delay the house-selling process.

Management packs contain details on what the buyer is purchasing, such as service charges and insurance costs, but can take weeks to arrive.

Mendes added that it’s crucial to set a realistic asking price on your home when putting it on the market. Recent research from Zoopla found many people are setting the initial price too high which means it takes longer for a property to sell, sometimes years.