Greedy sellers' high asking prices blasted by mortgage firm

The average UK property takes 91 days to sell - and that’s down to greedy sellers according to the mortgage arm of the Post Office. 

Its report examines the average time a property takes to sell in 20 major cities across the UK. It finds that sellers in Bristol and Edinburgh had the least amount of time to wait, with homes spending 51 and 53 days on the market respectively; cities to the west of the UK were most likely to see a long wait with residences in Swansea and Liverpool taking the longest to be sold - 100 and 108 days respectively.

“House prices continue to rise but eager sellers should remember that this might not be any guarantee of a successful sale. The attractive asking prices can lead many people to put their property on the market, leading to competition in the local market” says John Willcock, head of mortgages at Post Office Money.

Edinburgh has seen the biggest fall in the typical time properties have spent on the market over the past year – with the average home taking 25 per cent less time to sell compared to last year.

In contrast, the housing markets in Brighton and London, some of the best performing areas since the financial crisis, have seen the sharpest increase in the typical time that properties have spent on the market with Brighton seeing a 24 per cent increase and London, a 20 per cent rise.

The Post Office says that in part these movements in time on the market reflect changes in the number of properties listed for sale in the cities. For instance, time on the market in Bristol has risen over the past year - by 17.5 per cent - as strong house price growth has begun to attract more properties for sale, despite the fact it is still the quickest selling city in the UK.

With the exception of Swansea, where prices have remained steady, house prices have risen in each of the cities analysed in this report over the last year. 

The average price of a home in the UK rose by 8.7 per cent in the year to June 2016. However, despite these rising prices, the Post Office says there are indications that the housing market pressure softened recently, with falls in both demand and supply.