Estate agents now face the longest commission delays on record, with the average home sale in Great Britain taking over seven months to complete. Rightmove’s latest data shows the typical move requires 216 days from listing to completion—62 days to find a buyer and another 154 days to finalize the transaction. This marks the slowest pace recorded at this time of year since tracking began.
The delays vary significantly by region. London remains the slowest market, where agreed sales take 174 days on average to complete. The North East fares better at 141 days, while Scotland leads with the fastest turnaround at 98 days. Its distinct legal process and upfront information requirements help speed up transactions.
Property type also affects timelines. Flats take the longest to complete, averaging 169 days, while terraced and semi-detached homes close in about 149 days. Since 2019, completion times have increased by 36 days, despite advances in technology.
Related: Foxtons profits fall amid housing market slowdown
Rightmove attributes the delays to high conveyancing workloads, lengthy property chains, leasehold complexities, and outdated manual processes. For agents, the extended timeline keeps sales in limbo for months after agreement, raising the risk of chains collapsing and delaying fee payments.
Nearly a quarter of agreed sales initially fall through, and about 6% fail entirely, never returning to the market within a year.
Reforms could reduce wait times, but adoption has been slow. Rightmove estimates £205 billion worth of residential property currently in the pipeline still faces the completion process. The company backs government proposals to share information earlier and digitize conveyancing, arguing that faster, more transparent transactions would reduce fall-throughs and improve certainty for all parties.
Johan Svanstrom, Rightmove’s CEO, called the seven-month average wait “simply far too long” and linked housing mobility to economic growth. He urged stronger information standards and greater transparency throughout the process.
Related: Tishman Speyer, Breakthrough Refinance $90M Life Sciences Campus
Brad Fordham of NatWest Group shared the concern, noting that conveyancing delays create “emotional distress and real financial costs” for customers. NatWest has worked with Rightmove to offer mortgage-in-principle decisions, letting buyers view properties with confidence in their budget.
The call for reform is not new. Nick Leeming, chairman of Jackson-Stops, said the government must prioritize changes to create a more fluid market. While some progress has been made, he pointed to local authority search times, transaction complexity, and chain length as ongoing issues.
Completion times naturally vary across the country bec
