CASH buyers are flooding back into the housing market due to the crisis tearing through the conveyancing sector, it was claimed today.

House-hunters in many areas now face waiting FOUR MONTHS to move due to a broken
system which is paralysing the market in many regions.

Delays are being caused by red tape and a lack of legal staff. On average it is now taking 133 days from accepted offer to completion.

And Jonathan Rolande, founder of House Buy Fast, says these delays have led to a surge in cash buyers entering the market.

He said: “Right now cash is king again. This is being driven by the fact many surveyors, banks and solicitors are under pressure due to what is a still remarkably buoyant market.

“We are seeing more and more cases of buyers finding their plans delayed simply due to the volume of work property professionals are facing.
“As a result property owners, keen to take advantage of what many see as the last hurrah of the price boom is increasingly ditching buyers who need a mortgage in favour of cash. We are even seeing cases where deals are being agreed for cash where the price offered is less.

With the average sale taking over two months from the time a buyer is found, it’s easy to see why.I expect this to continue in the second half of this year.”

According to reports last week, chains are collapsing at a cost of thousands of pounds in
wasted property surveys and solicitors’ fees – while the logjam is holding up purchases for so long that some buyers are even seeing their mortgage offers expire.

The wait is even worse than the hold-ups that homebuyers experienced during the market boom, when conveyancing firms were overwhelmed by demand.
Current delays are 60 per cent longer than a decade ago, according to property data company Landmark Information Group.

Half of all sales in the UK in the year to date have taken more than three months to reach completion.

That is a record high – and roughly double the equivalent share in 2017.
For mortgaged buyers, the share of purchases taking more than six months to complete has
also hit a record high figure, of 13.9 per cent.
One in seven will therefore have to renew their agreed loan deals before they are able to move
house.
In June 2022, the average waiting time for a buyer was 130 days.
This was 19 days longer than in June 2021, when the pressure on the conveyancing process was
particularly extreme owing to the end of the stamp duty holiday that month.
Part of the problem is a chronic shortage of conveyancers, many of whom left the sector
during the pandemic.