How long it takes to sell a house
And why we will not give you a national average.
open for offer lets you test the market before you list. Your home sits in the pre-market, buyers register interest, and nothing is advertised.
The honest answer to how long a sale takes is that nobody can tell you, and the averages in circulation are weaker than they look.
Why we publish no average
Our records come from Land Registry sold prices. They record the day a sale completed. They do not record the day the home first went on the market.
So we can tell you what a house sold for and when. We cannot tell you how long it sat there, and we will not estimate it and then call it a measurement.
The clock most people forget
Nearly 1 in 4 — 23.4% of listings had a sale fall through at least once in 2026, per TwentyCi. When one collapses the clock restarts, and the listing keeps its history.
What actually sets the pace
The price against the local market. Whether your buyer has a chain. What the survey turns up.
Of those three, only the first is yours to set, and it is the one most sellers pick last.
Find out before the clock starts
Testing the market puts a price in front of buyers before the home is advertised anywhere. If nothing comes back, nothing public has happened.
You see every registered interest in one place — the order book — and you decide what to do with it.
Common questions
What is the average time to sell a house in the UK?
We do not publish one. Our records are Land Registry sold prices, which capture the completion date and not the date a home first went on the market.
Why do published averages vary so much?
They measure different things: time to an agreed sale, time to exchange, and time to completion are three different clocks, and sources rarely agree on which one they are quoting.
What happens when a sale falls through?
The clock restarts and the listing keeps its history. Nearly 1 in 4 — 23.4% of listings had a sale fall through at least once in 2026, per TwentyCi.
What is the fastest thing I can control?
The asking price against the local market. It is the only one of the main factors that is entirely yours to set.