Just one in seven of the properites listed with the nation’s estate agents have found a buyer within 30 days of being on the market, according to new research.
The difficulty in finding buyers is particularly acute in Leicester, London and Birmingham, where high prices combined with high interest rates appear to have made it difficult for people to afford a first home or a move up the property ladder.
The research comes from estate agent comparison site, GetAgent.co.uk, which found that just 14.3 percent of properties recently listed for sale in England had found a buyer in the last 30 days.
As result more than 85 percent of properties are on the market for more than a month before finding a buyer.
The firm said the figures demonstrate it is very important to choose the right agent, specifically one that can demonstrate how actively it will market a property and its success in getting asking price offers.
The firm said: “Leicester is home to the lowest level of homes selling at pace, with just 9.8 percent of all current for sale stock finding a buyer within 30 days. London also ranks poorly in this respect (11.6 percent), as does Birmingham (15.8 percent).”
A breakdown of the figures show that just 48 of 492 properties listed in Leicester were sold within 30 days. The figure was 2,117 out of 18,299 in London and 267 of 1,692 in Birmingham.
By contrast, the market was most active in Sheffield, with a relatively impressive 22.9 percent of homes listed with agents in Sheffield finding a buyer.
The firm added: “In Bristol, 22.6 percent of homes are finding a buyer within just 30 days, while in Newcastle (22.5 percent) and Leeds (20.4 percent) more than one in five homes are also selling within 30 days of first being listed.”
“Additionally, not all of these sales will complete, and many will have to be re-listed. This goes to show that it is still difficult to sell a property in the current market.
“However, many agents are doing a great job by pricing appropriately, maximising exposure for their listings, and managing to get sales agreed.
“If you’re a homeowner looking to sell, make sure you look at what the agent has sold lately, how long it took them to sell it, and, if possible, the percentage of the asking price they achieved.”
