Time taken to sell a house has been decreasing since 2016
Selling a house in 2022 is the quickest it has been for six years, and twice as fast as it was in pre-pandemic 2019, data analysis by mortgage comparison website money.co.uk has revealed.
Using data from Zoopla, the research looked at the number of days between a listing appearing on Zoopla and a sale being agreed upon, by month, to reveal the average time it takes to sell a house and the best months to do so.
The price comparison platform found that May 2022’s average time to sell of 21 days is the quickest that the average house sale has been in the last six years, with the time taken to sell a house decreasing by 42% since 2016. In terms of days, the average number it takes to sell a house has decreased by 60% between January 2016 and May 2022.
So far, 2022 is the year in which house sales are going through the quickest, at an average of 26 days. By contrast, 2019 saw sales drag on the longest, averaging 53 days to agree upon a sale. Although the data shows a general decrease in the time to sell a house, the longest average time the process has taken was in January 2019 at 64 days.
The quickest month to sell a house is April, with the average sale taking just 36 days compared to the average of 54 days it took in January.
money.co.uk said this is likely due to the fact that during winter, many people are occupied by the Christmas celebrations, while many are on summer holidays from June to August. It added that spring is generally a much quieter time of year for most people, which could be why houses sell quickly at this time. Most years tend to follow this pattern, with 2020 – the year of the COVID-19 pandemic peak – as the notable exception.
