1 week Ago By [email protected] (Victoria Shipp)
There is one area of Surrey where it takes at least a week longer to sell a house than anywhere else in the county. With homes here staying on the market for eleven days longer than the average of England and Wales, there could be a number of reasons homes here are harder to shift. On average it took 47 days to sell a home in Mole Valley in the first few months of 2025.
Data from one of the UK’s leading property websites, Zoopla, this is the longest waiting time in Surrey, and among the worst in the South East. Containing Dorking and Leatherhead , Mole Valley is known for its connection to the Surrey Hills and sits about halfway between central London and the Sussex coast. It is hard to get an average house price for the whole area, but Zoopla estimates that over the last 12 months the average house price in Dorking was £525,666.
This 47 days is a noticeable increase since this time last year when on average properties stayed on the housing market for 42. This meant that in 2024 Mole Valley was not the slowest area to sell a house, being put back into third place by Waverley (45) and Tandridge (46). No matter what year you look at, homes in Mole Valley still sold considerably faster than in Denbighshire in Wales where properties stayed on the market for a colossal 62 days, putting the Surrey numbers in some perspective.
According to Zoopla , homes in England and Wales spend an average of 36 days on the market before a sale is agreed. Over half (52 per cent) of sales are agreed within two months of a home being listed, a small increase from last year. After this, buyers and sellers then usually need another four to six months to complete the sale, depending on how complicated it is.
This means that Mole Valley home owners are having to wait 11 days longer on average to get their house off the market. This could be for a number of reasons. The time it takes to sell can vary widely depending on location, availability of homes for sale, price levels and demand.
One of the reasons for homes not selling could be because they are priced incorrectly. When estate agents have to reduce the price by five per cent or more, homes can take almost twice as long to sell. Homes with four or more bedrooms and flats take the longest time to find a buyer.
The early weeks of 2025 saw a double-digit increase (18 per cent) in the number of flats on the market, with a more modest increase of seven per cent in the number of houses for sale. This increase in supply is running well ahead of new sales agreed, something that is significantly impacting the time to sell for these types of properties. Richard Donnell, Executive Director at Zoopla said: “It currently takes just over a month to agree a home sale across England and Wales, but this varies widely across the country and by property type with smaller family homes the fastest selling homes.
“Households that are thinking about listing their home and moving in 2025 need to set their asking price at the right level and take the advice of local agents. Buyers have a lot more choice of homes for sale than a year ago. "Aiming too high on the asking price is likely to impact saleability and how long you may have to wait to agree a sale”.
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