Tuesday 25 October 2016 6:45 am

Britain’s cities compared: How long does it take to sell your house?

While London may be an extremely popular choice for Britons to live, for anyone looking to sell their property quick-sharp, it is one of the worst.

On average London is the fourth slowest city to shift a property in the UK according to a survey by Post Office Money. Furthermore, it takes almost double the length of time to flog bricks and mortar in the capital than it does in Bristol.

Meanwhile, despite having some of lowest average urban properties prices in the country, Liverpool is the hardest place to sell a house, taking on average 108 days to complete a sale.

Selected cities: number of days and average house prices (City Rate of Sale and Post Office Money)

John Willcock, head of mortgages at Post Office Money explained that in a period of increasing house prices people can forget how long it takes to complete on a sale. He said:

The attractive asking prices can lead many people to put their property on the market, leading to competition in the local market. Even property hotspots such as London are not necessarily guaranteed to sell quickly.

The two places where waiting times have grown the most are Brighton, where waiting times have increased by nearly a quarter, and London, where properties are on the market for over a fifth longer.

Selected cities: number of days and average house prices (City Rate of Sale and Post Office Money)

"Housing markets in Brighton and London, some of the best performing areas since the financial crisis, have seen the sharpest increase in the typical time that properties have spent on the market… In part these movements in time on the market reflect changes in the number of properties listed for sale in the cities," said Willcock.

At the other end of the spectrum, the number of days taken to sell a property in Edinburgh has shrunk by a quarter, with properties on the market for an average of only 53 days before being snapped up.