"Many homebuyers will have to act quickly to see the benefit, while in some areas they are unlikely to benefit at all due to much longer transaction times."
With an average time of 144 days from listing to completing, GetAgent is urging homebuyers looking to take advantage of the recently announced stamp duty holiday to act now to get a sale comfortably over the line within the eight-month holiday period.
The slowest pockets of the market are currently the City of London (271 days), Aberdeenshire (269 days) and Moray (261 days).
Highland (243 days), Gwynedd (233 days), Denbighshire (215 days), Conwy (212 days), Barrow-in-Furness (210 days), South Lakeland (207 days) and Pembrokeshire (206 days) also rank within the top 10 slowest spots for a property sale in 2020.
In these areas, homebuyers currently searching the market are unlikely to transact before the end of the current stamp duty holiday and would, therefore, miss out on any savings.
However, there are many pockets of the UK market where property is selling considerably quicker than the national average and where homebuyers would have plenty of time to transact before the eight-month stamp duty reprieve has ended.
Edinburgh is the best place in the UK for a quick sale, with the average transaction taking just 78 days or 2.6 months in 2020. Wigan (86 days), North Lanarkshire (91 days), Bolsover (91 days), Nuneaton and Bedworth (94 days) and East Dunbartonshire (94 days) also rank within the quickest spots.
Bristol, Ashfield, Mansfield and Glasgow complete the top 10.
In London, Camden (205 days) and Kensington and Chelsea (201 days) join Westminster as some of the slowest spots for a property sale. Bexley is the borough home to the quickest average time to sell at 117 days, with Greenwich (122 days), Barking and Dagenham (124 days), Bromley (128 days) and Waltham Forest (128 days) also amongst the quickest.
Founder and CEO of GetAgent, Colby Short, commented: “An overall increase in the time to sell will come as no surprise, given the industry-wide restrictions implemented during the height of the Covid-19 crisis. While the market has seen a rejuvenated level of demand bolstered by the recent stamp duty holiday, many homebuyers will have to act quickly to see the benefit, while in some areas they are unlikely to benefit at all due to much longer transaction times.
"For those thinking of selling, it’s important to understand how long it may take in your local market and how this can impact your ongoing purchase. It’s also sensible to give yourself a time buffer, as the process of finding an agent and listing your property can often take as long as three weeks before your property even goes live.
"With this considered, the time frame of 165 days to sell the average UK home is probably a realistic one in the current market conditions. Therefore those looking to buy now need to get their skates on if they are going to complete while the stamp duty holiday is still available.”
