As the first phase of the stamp duty deadline approaches, homebuyers across the nation remain stuck in transaction limbo due to long delays at the back end of the selling timeline caused by heightened levels of buyer demand. Research by the estate agent comparison site, GetAgent.co.uk, has revealed just how long these current market delays are and how they differ across England and Wales. 

GetAgent.co.uk keeps a comprehensive record of property sales across the nation, using data from all of the major online portals to record the point at which a home is listed for sale online and removed once it moves beyond the sold subject to contract phase. GetAgent then cross-references this sale with the Land Registry using proprietary algorithms to see when the sale completes, revealing total selling times and, in this instance, the time taken as a result of the market backlog. 

The data from GetAgent shows that currently, the average property is taking 274 days to sell from the point of listing online to being marked as completed by the Land Registry. However, just 118 days of this is attributed to the actual process of advertising the property and finding a buyer. It’s then taking a further 156 days for the property to go through the final conveyancing process and complete – more than five and half months.

In some regions this delay is far greater and the East of England takes the crown as the region with the longest market delays. In the East of England, transactions are taking 182 days or six and a half months from the point the property is removed from the portals to completion. 

In the North East, this time currently averages 172 days, with the South West (166 days), East Midlands (165 days) and London (159 days) also home to above-average timelines, taking around six months to complete the final stages of a sale.

At a more localised level, it’s North West Leicestershire where homebuyers are facing the longest wait. The current timeline from accepting an offer to completing on a sale currently sits at a huge 422 days – over 15 months.

Cannock Chase (394 days), Barnet (362 days), West Lindsey (351 days) and South Hams (348 days) also rank amongst the longest market timelines where the final stages of a transaction are concerned.  

Founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, Colby Short, commented: 

“The stamp duty holiday has been a great incentive to coax many homebuyers out of their Covid boltholes and into the market, but this huge influx of buyer demand has had its consequences. The industry has struggled to cope and none more so than the conveyancing industry whose failure to keep pace has led to a huge build-up of transactions and very lengthy delays at the back end of the transaction process. 

As a result, the average homebuyer can expect a timeline of five to six months once before they can complete, and that’s once they’ve accepted an offer. 

While the industry is working tirelessly across the board to address the current backlog, it really does highlight how the home buying and selling process in the UK is built on some pretty archaic practices. It also takes a reasonable amount of time for the Land Registry to register a sale once all the hard work is done, so this also adds more time to an already lengthy process.”

While the advent of technology has helped to a certain degree, there’s still a lot of work to be done to bring the process up to scratch for both the consumer and those working to serve them.”

Table shows the current time line for a property transaction across England and Wales
Location	Total time to sell from first listing to sale registered with Land Registry	Time between first listing and removal from the portal	Time between leaving the portal and registration with Land Registry (days)	Time between leaving the portal and registration with Land Registry (Months)
East of England	297	116	182	6.5
North East	288	116	172	6.1
South West	285	119	166	5.9
East Midlands	262	97	165	5.9
London	297	139	159	5.7
North West	269	116	153	5.4
South East	264	115	149	5.3
West Midlands region	253	107	146	5.2
Yorkshire and the Humber	253	114	139	5.0
Wales	273	144	129	4.6
England	274	115	159	5.7
England and Wales	274	118	156	5.6
Data sourced from GetAgent.co.uk
Table shows the areas of England and Wales with the longest transaction time from the point of leaving the portals to completion
Location	Total time to sell from first listing to completion	Time between first listing and removal from the portal	Time between leaving the portal and completing (days)	Time between leaving the portal and completing (Months)
North West Leicestershire	528	106	422	15.1
Cannock Chase	491	96	394	14.1
Barnet	510	148	362	12.9
West Lindsey	463	112	351	12.5
South Hams	464	116	348	12.4
East Devon	466	124	342	12.2
Chelmsford	431	93	338	12.1
Swindon	435	119	315	11.3
Sheffield	391	76	315	11.2
Amber Valley	412	102	310	11.1
Data sourced from GetAgent.co.uk

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Notes to Editors:

●        GetAgent pulls data from all of the major portals which are then cross-referenced with the Land Registry using their proprietary algorithms and input from partner agents.

●        GetAgent is a UK wide whole of market estate agency comparison website. Analysing performance through data to inform home sellers of the best agents.

●        Founded in 2015 by Colby Short (Stevenson Cartwright; SMG Worldwide) and Peter Thum-Bonanno (Find Properly; Analysys Mason)

●        Backed by Seedcamp, the prolific venture capital technology investor

●        And has to date received over 100,000 enquiries for agents from property sellers to a total property value of £30bn and are now serving over 10,000 enquiries per month.