Fresh research suggests that the time it takes for a house to receive an accepted offer is the quickest it has been for five years – decreasing by 42% since 2016.

Analysts at money.co.uk looked at data from Zoopla, assessing the number of days between a listing appearing on Zoopla and a sale being agreed upon, by month, to reveal the average time it takes for a house to go under offer and the best months to do so.

Time taken to sell a house by Year

May 2022 saw an average time of 21 days for an accepted offer which is the quickest that the average house sale has been in the last five years.

The average number of days to a sale has generally fluctuated but on the whole, has seen a decrease. In total, the average number of days it takes to secure an accepted offer on a house has decreased by 60% between January 2016 and May 2022.

So far, 2022 is by far the year where house sales are going through the quickest, at an average of 26 days. In contrast, 2019 saw sales drag on the longest, averaging 53 days to agree upon a sale.

Coming in at the quickest month to secure an accepted offer on a house is April, with the average sale taking 36 days compared to the average of 54 days it takes in January.

This is likely due to the fact that during winter, many people are occupied by the Christmas celebrations, while many people are on summer holidays from June to August. However, Spring is generally a much quieter time of year for most people, which could be why properties sell quickly at this time. Most years tend to roughly follow this same pattern, with 2020 as the notable exception.

Although the data shows a general decrease in the time to secure an offer, the longest average time the process has taken was in January 2019 (64 days) – 11 more days than it took in January 2016.