Thirty-one days is our average from instruction to exchange, and averages hide everything interesting. Here is what happens inside them, in the order it happens.

Weeks one and two

Photography, floor plan, and the register. Most of our sales are agreed in this window, before anything is advertised, which is why the average is what it is. The work that decides the outcome has usually happened before the house appears anywhere at all.

Weeks three and four are the survey and the searches. Nothing is in our hands and very little is in the buyer’s. This is the part that a good solicitor shortens and a slow one doubles, and it is the single most useful question to ask a buyer before accepting an offer.

The week that breaks

Week five, almost always. The survey comes back with something, the lender takes a second look, and somebody wants a reduction. Roughly a third of our sales have this conversation. The ones that survive it are the ones where the seller was told, in week one, what the survey was going to find.