The average home sale in Great Britain is now taking 216 days from listing to completion, according to Rightmove, leaving landlords facing a longer and more uncertain route out of the market when they decide to sell.

Rightmove says the current total is made up of 62 days to find a buyer and another 154 days from sale agreed to completion. That makes this the longest summer wait on record in its data. For landlords, that is more than a market curiosity. It means a disposal plan can now run for more than seven months before the money is actually in the bank.

The timing matters because many landlords are still weighing sales, refinancing and portfolio reshaping after this year’s rule changes. Longer transaction chains increase the risk of deals falling apart, while carrying costs keep running throughout the delay.

Completion delays are still getting worse

Rightmove says completion times have stretched by 36 days since 2019 despite years of talk about digitisation and faster information sharing. Flats remain the slowest property type to complete, at 169 days on average, while London records the longest agreed-sale period at 174 days compared with 141 days in the North East.

The portal also says nearly a quarter of agreed sales initially fall through, with around 6% failing altogether and not returning to market within a year. That is a serious drag for landlords trying to line up onward purchases, clear debt or exit under pressure.

Johan Svanstrom, chief executive of Rightmove, said a healthy market depends on people being able to move home easily and with certainty, but the current process is taking more than seven months on average.

This follows Residential Landlord’s earlier coverage of rising transaction times, which already pointed to slower completions as supply softened. It also builds on Residential Landlord’s report on mandatory sales packs, which suggested ministers are under pressure to shorten the legal stage and cut fall-through risk.

Implications for landlords planning disposals

Landlords selling tenanted or recently vacated property should now assume a much longer timetable than the old spring-to-summer rule of thumb. The risk is not just delay. A slower legal process can expose a seller to rate changes, buyer renegotiation, fresh compliance costs and void periods if the tenancy has already ended.

That makes preparation more important:

• gather title, leasehold and management information early
• budget for a longer overlap on mortgage and insurance costs
• avoid serving notice too early where timing is tight
• check whether the likely buyer pool is weaker for flats or leasehold stock

For investors hoping to recycle capital, the wider message is that selling is no longer a quick release valve. A deal can still complete, but the friction in the system is high enough to change portfolio timing and pricing strategy.

Rightmove’s latest figures are part of its wider push for home-moving reform and earlier information sharing in the sales process. The underlying data is summarised in Rightmove’s latest market analysis.

Opinion

The longer sales take, the less flexible the private rented sector becomes. Policymakers keep talking about landlord choice, but a market where exits take seven months and deals still wobble late in the chain is not a market that reallocates capital well.