What's the quickest turnaround you've had for selling/buying a property?!

FTBFun

I had 5 weeks between offer and completion, would have been quicker if it hadn't taken me 10 days to transfer my "instant access" ISA.

firstaspect

I was just over 4 weeks for my FTB from putting the offer in to moving in. I'm currently going through a sale and purchase with a FTB buying mine and we're buying a place with no chain. It's at 2 weeks tomorrow so will let you know how long it all takes.

timmyt

the quicker the more shortcuts taken by your conveyancer.

good luck

PasturesNew

Years ago, about 20 or so, I remember reading about some girl who wanted to buy - but there was a serious deadline looming. Withdrawal of something, end date or something, possibly MIRAS. She managed to buy a place in just a few hours by running round and doing all the leg work herself.

That was back in the days when you went to see the Bank Manager, face to face, to get a mortgage, so she'd have seen him, he'd have rubber stamped the mortgage, she went to the Council and did the searches herself - and the solicitor managed to complete it all really fast.

It was one of those small write-ups/stories in a newspaper about how fast she'd managed it. It was about one day though.

These days you don't see the Bank Manager face to face though, which did speed things up as you got a Yay/Nay on the spot after a few questions and a quick form.

Hailstorm

The top of my chain last year was very quick.

They were initially buying a repo but had to pull out as they couldn't get a mortgage against the property. They pulled out of that purchase in the first week of September last year. A week later they found a new build scheduled to be ready at the end of October. The chain exchanged contracts in the first week of October and completed at the end of the month.

Evilm

4 weeks from offer on our FTB but both parties had already started to prepare mortgages and paperwork etc and had a previous transaction fail a few days before our offer.

Our purchase and sale took about 8-10 weeks which is more standard.

saskia297

4 weeks.... could have been quicker but we didn't have the funds available for purchase until a fixed date... moved in 3 weeks ago

pollyzanna

Thanks everyone, we have accepted an offer on ours from cash buyers and are in the middle of negotiating on the one we like. The vendor of that one is negotiating on a house with a couple who are emigrating - so not an unreasonable chain length (assuming we can all settle on satisfactory prices!!!)

Hoping everything could be sorted for us to be in for Christmas! (fingers crossed!)

beccad

I never understand why it takes so long in this country. Our flat sale (FTB and we were chain free) took 13 weeks for some unfathomable reason. We couldn't have made it go any quicker if we tried - our solicitor was amazing, the buyer's solicitor did nothing for six weeks.

A friend of mine in New Zealand saw a property she liked and had bought and moved in within 10 days.