A NEW data tool has revealed the fastest and slowest times it takes to sell a house in Essex.

Professional house buying firm Property Solvers’ Speed of Sale tool has revealed it takes an average of 16 weeks to sell a property across Essex.

Updated monthly, the latest dataset analysed more than 2,796 property sales across the region between April 2020 and April 2021.

The statistics track the moment a property is listed on the UK’s largest property portal Rightmove to the point it is marked as officially sold at the HM Land Registry.

Properties were selling the fastest in Canvey Island (SS8), Rochford (SS4) and Epping (CM16) adopting a minimum number of 20 property sales in each area.

In the top 10 areas, Property Solvers revealed homes took almost 13 and a half weeks to sell on average.

Here are the fastest-selling areas:

Homes were selling the slowest in the Harwich (CO12), Basildon (SS16) and Colchester (CO3) postcodes.

In the bottom ten postcodes, the data showed properties were taking 18 weeks to sell on average.

Here are the slowest-selling areas:

Property Solvers co-founder, Ruban Selvanayagam said: “Despite the broad level of inactivity under the first Covid lockdown, the estate agency industry has recovered relatively quickly.”

“While buyer demand certainly has not waned as many predicted, the time for house transactions to complete has certainly lengthened.”

“Many solicitors, mortgage brokers and other professionals in our sector have been working from home which has often resulted in further administrative and other operational delays.

“However, with restrictions gradually being lifted, and more people returning to office, the property buying and selling process should hopefully accelerate.”

“Many of the processes remain slow and archaic – an issue that’s likely to continue post-pandemic.”