UK cities with the longest homebuying timelines

Research from WiggyWam, the all-in-one property platform, shows which UK cities have the busiest estate agents, therefore indicating where homebuyers are likely to have the longest buying timelines.

The UK’s busiest agents can currently be found in Aberdeen, a city where each individual estate agency branch currently has an average of 29 sales listings on its books.

Second on the list is Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, where each branch currently has an average of 28 for-sale properties listed.

Next is Newport with 27 properties per branch, and then Liverpool and London round off the Top five, joint at 26 properties per branch.

Following the Chancellor’s confirmation that the SDLT holiday will be extended through to the end of June, it’s likely that an influx of buyers and sellers are going to enter the market in the period of time between national lockdown easing, vaccination rates increasing, and the SDLT holiday window closing.

If so, those cities with the busiest agents are likely to be the same ones where completing transactions is going to take the longest.

This observation can also be reversed to indicate in which UK cities transactions are likely to be completed in the shortest timescale.

Glasgow, with a total of 122 estate agency branches (7th most in the UK), is the place to be for fast transactions because there are currently a total of 989 properties listed in the city, which means each branch is only handling an average of 8.

Second is Leeds with just 11 properties per branch, followed by Bradford with 12, Bristol with 13, and Oxford with 14.

WiggyWam CEO, Silas J. Lees MRICS, says:

“The extension to the SDLT holiday will undoubtedly lead to more pressure on agents to make hay while the sun shines. Not least in those cities where agents are already juggling a lot of work.

“However, it could well be the additional burden on lawyers, not agents, which turns out to be the straw that breaks the camel's back, ultimately leading to too many deals not being completed in time.

“Now more than ever, agents need to box clever by streamlining the conveyancing bottleneck as much as possible. Agents plugging into our conveyancing concierge service can get deals exchanged in half the time, guaranteed.”