The average time it is taking home-movers to get through the conveyancing process has dropped by 27 days since the summer, as a smaller pipelines helps to speed up home moves.

A study from Rightmove reveals it is taking just over four months (127 days) from a sale being agreed until it completes. This is down from five months (154 days) back in July.

The portal predicts that by the end of the year one and a half million homes will have been sold across Great Britain.

This would be the highest number of home sales since 2007, 47% higher than in 2020 and 31% higher than in 2019.

So far this year Rightmove estimates that there have been 1.2 million transactions. There are a further 300,000 home-movers who are likely to make it through the conveyancing process in time to complete in 2021.

Another 250,000 home-movers are currently going through the legal process and are likely to complete in early 2022.

In October 2019 there were 150,000 home-movers going through the legal process who completed in 2020.

Tim Bannister, Rightmove’s Director of Property Data comments:

“The good news is that people moving home right now are hopefully seeing quicker conveyancing times than those earlier in the year.

“There’s likely to be a conveyancing rush in December among those people desperately hoping to be able to celebrate the festive period in their new home.

“Since 2014 the number of home sales in a year was pretty consistent at between 1.1 million and 1.2 million, but the effects of the pandemic have disrupted that level this year and we’re likely to end up with the highest number of sales in one year since 2007.”