A sales progression service says that there is a marked difference between the north and the south in the speed of transactions.
View My Chain says that in the north-east, it takes an average of 83 days to progress from offer accepted to completion.
In London and the east of England, the average time is more than 100 days.
View My Chain says there are likely to be three reasons for the difference.
In the north-east, properties are cheaper, and are quicker and easier to buy with cash.
In London, high-value properties are common. They are much more complex, and have longer completion times.
Also in London, there are many leasehold properties.
The firm, which went live last October and is the brainchild of Sohail Rashid, says that properties sold for under £100,000 take 89 days to complete, while £1m-plus leasehold flats take over 153 days.
It means that while high-end agents in London get bigger commissions, they wait twice as long for them.
Generally speaking, agents selling mostly leasehold properties wait 11.34 days longer than agents who mostly deal with freehold sales.
View My Chain, which operates over England and Wales, claims that its agent users typically complete sales 17 days faster than those who don’t use the system.
The service works by flagging up key milestones, allowing agents to see where they are problems in the chain and to step in earlier to prevent fall-throughs.
Rashid said: “As an industry we haven’t had extensive enough data on sales progression timings in the past to help understand how this can impact on our business, but with the new way with which we now monitor property sales, it is possible to learn much more about what holds up sales and therefore slows down sales, impacting on an agency’s cash flow.
“Early adopters of View My Chain are finding that regardless of whether or not they are experts in sales progression, the data and transparency the service offers means they are improving completion times, which means more instructions and better cash management.”
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