Homebuying in the UK is taking over three times longer than expected, our new major customer survey shows.
What’s more, the expectations and reality of completion times varies significantly by age group and postcode region. We independently quizzed over 5000 people from across the UK who had bought or sold a property in the past five years. More than 95% of respondents had bought or sold a property in that time.
More than half of those surveyed, 57%, thought that the homebuying process would take less than two months from when the offer was accepted to exchanging contracts but, in reality, 46% discovered that it took between three and six months. For a further unlucky 16%, their completion took more than six months.
Despite most respondents not being first time buyers and having some previous experience of the process, 62% of people took well over three months to exchange.
The poorest served region with the highest proportion of people waiting longer than expected was the West Midlands where nearly 20% of transactions took in excess of six months. This was closely followed by the North-East at 19% of transactions, then East Anglia and the South-West where over 18% of transactions took that long.
Comments from buyers across the UK included:
“We were gazundered and the chain collapsed at one point!”
“Things have changed a lot since we previously bought/sold– nowadays it is more like an auction – you get a guide price and you put an offer in and wait and see if you have ‘won’!”
“The mortgage was agreed and papers signed ready to move in three days then the money went missing? We couldn’t move for five more days with no furniture in our house and two autistic children.”
It is therefore no surprise that customers’ expectations are not being met and that the homebuying process continues to be susceptible to unexpected events, delays and the levels of stress that can be caused when it does go horribly wrong.
This survey is part of our new research into how homebuying can be radically improved through access to safe, shareable and trustable digital data. We will publish more survey results shortly, and the research will be published in full at an official launch. The research will include key recommendations to Government around digitising the homebuying process.
