East of England named slowest area for property transactions

Property sales in the East of England are taking longer to complete than any other area of England or Wales. 

According to data from GetAgent.co.uk, the average time from the first listing to the sale being marked as completed by the Land Registry is 297 days. 

Throughout England and Wales, this is taking an average of 274 days. 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 months.

In the East of England, transactions are taking 182 days — or six months — from being removed from the portals to completion.

Founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, Colby Short, said the property industry has struggled to cope with the huge influx of buyer demand brought about by the stamp duty holiday, the first phase of which is due to end next week. 

He blamed the conveyancing industry's "failure to keep pace" on the resulting build-up of transactions and "very lengthy delays" at the back end of the transaction process.

"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," he said. "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.”