Edinburgh homes are fastest selling in the UK

Homes in the Capital are in high demand.

It takes on average just 39 days for a home in the Capital to be snapped up compared with a UK-wide average of 102 days, the report from Post Office Money found.

The UK-wide figure is six days longer than in 2017, when the average time between a property going on the market and being marked as sold or under offer was 96 days.

The report, developed with the Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr), looked at the average selling times in 35 places across the UK. It found properties in Edinburgh and Glasgow sell fastest, at an average of 39 and 48 days respectively, with homes in Blackpool taking the longest average time to sell, at 131 days. The Post Office Money City Rate of Sale report found homes in London take the next longest time to sell, at 126 days on average.

Belfast and Swansea, have seen the biggest fall in the time properties spend on the market at 17 and 14 days less respectively than last year.

At the other end of the spectrum, properties in Bristol and Luton are taking 10 and 14 days longer respectively to sell than last year.

The report suggested this increase is due to homes being relatively unaffordable in these areas, causing houses to spend longer sitting on the market.

In 2017, homes in Luton cost around nine-and-a-half times wages on average, while those in Bristol cost around 10.9 times wages typically.

Paul Hilton, chief executive of property firm ESPC, said: “Unlike other areas of the UK, 2018 has proved another very good year for property sales in Edinburgh. “We have experienced continued strong demand for property throughout the year. ESPC’s figures for City of Edinburgh has the median time to sell at 18 days for 2018 with 86.4 per cent of these properties exceeding their Home Report Valuation figure.”

The average selling price for a home in Edinburgh rose by more than 7 per cent between July and September, new data from ESPC revealed.

Buyers now face parting with £272,241 to secure a home, with two-bedroom flats in Leith, the Shore and Granton seeing the biggest increase.

In the 2018 Good Growth for Cities index, compiled by accountancy firm PwC and think-tank Demos, Edinburgh is ranked sixth in the top ten best places to live and work out of 42 cities across the UK, down from fourth last year, mainly due to house prices rising faster than wages.