New year new home, but how long does it take?
As we enter the new year, many will be seeking a fresh start and making plans to move.
However, with a significant mismatch between the length of time home movers expect a property should take to sell and the reality, its important to align expectations.
82% of home movers expected it to take less than 3 months from under offer to completion but only 43% experienced that.
After the Christmas lull, the new year is a popular time to look to move home. Last year, demand for homes surged in the first few weeks of January. Source: Dataloft by PriceHubble (https://inform.dataloft.co.uk/), Property Academy Home Moving Trends Survey 2024, Zoopla.
So, only around 43% of all sellers experienced a sales progression from offer excepted to completion.
Sales & Marketing director of Jukes Estate Agents Harlow Geoff Flewers is not at all surprised:
“There is a real problem with sales progression in England at the moment. Here at Jukes Estate Agents Harlow (http://www.jukesestates.co.uk), we do our best to steer sellers & buyers to use solicitors that time and time again get sales through in a reasonable time scale. However, there are some solicitors offering extremely cheap fees and it is no surprise that in a lot of cases they are extremely slow. This is not a reflection on their ability, it’s a reflection on them taking on too much work!”
He continued: “When we heard that 13% of sales took longer than 6 months, we were not at all surprised.”