How long does it take to buy a house?

Nov Rain

How long does it take it buy a house? To get a mortgage? From when you apply for a morgage to when you move in?

ProudDUB

Impossible to say. It varies from sale to sale and house to house.

I sold a house 2 years ago. The buyer was already mortgage approved and very eager to move on the sale. There were no complications on our end with things that can hold up a sale, such as the title deeds, issues with boundary walls, extensions etc etc. It was all very straightforward.

Buyer made an offer. We accepted. Closing was set for 4 weeks hence. It got pushed to five weeks due to the sale taking place over a bank holiday weekend, and a lot of the parties being away. But long story short, I had a check in my hand and the buyer had the keys to the house in his hand 5 weeks after the offer was first made.

However, I think that that may be the exception rather than the rule. There are no set rules on how long a buyers mortgage application can take. His financing may fall thru even after he makes an offer. There can be delays on the sellers end if there are issues with the title deeds to the house, or if the engineers report throws up issues with the property. If the sale is an executor sale, that can also slow things up.

So to answer your question, there is no set answer. It varies from sale to sale. But if there are no complications on the buyers or sellers ends ( and that is a VERY big "but" ) it shouldn't take all that long at all.

yopy

I just closed bought a second hand home as a first time buyer.

From the time we went sale agreed to the time we closed and collected the keys took 57 days. We both wanted to close asap so there was no delays throughout. Maybe our solicitor could have moved a little quicker but we were happy with this time frame.

2013Lara

17 months and counting.


Edit, just seen above thread is 2 years old

simpson80

we are currently buying a place too. bank sale. took 3 months to get sale agreed and have been waiting on contracts from the bank since 1st October. Gonna be slow but hopefully worth it. op in my situation I thought things would be plain sailing but really be prepared to be patient it's a long process most of the time

JBG2011

If you have spoken to your bank and agreed a mortgage in principle, and agreed to purchase a house, the ensuing process of actually acquiring keys takes 2 or 3 months. It can sometimes be quicker, sometimes longer, but generally within 10 weeks or so you should be sorted.

Things can move slowly in the beginning as usually the deeds to the house are held by a bank and it can take some time for deeds to be sent to the vendor's solicitor and contracts to be drawn up. Not all deals go through due to legal hiccups and occasionally people can agree the purchase of a property only for it to fall through.

Enter into the process with your eyes wide open, manage your expectations and be prepared for a few ups and downs.