The Speed of Sale Index: Where UK homes are selling fastest (and slowest) in 2026

Right now, UK homes sell fastest in Glasgow where an offer is usually accepted in just 11 days and slowest in Wakefield, where sellers typically wait 63 days. That’s according to Alto’s Speed of Sale Index that analyses live transaction data from roughly a third of UK estate agents.

Nationally, the median is 35 days, but there’s still a big gap between the fastest and slowest cities. Below, we look at why some places sell faster than others, rank every major UK city, and show you how to check the pace where you live.

Inside the Index: how we measure speed of sale

Alto’s Speed of Sale Index measures the median number of days it takes a home to go from being listed to a seller accepting an offer. 

It’s built from more than 70,000 agreed offers between 1 January and 11 June 2026, using Alto’s live transaction data across roughly a third of UK estate agents. 

This first edition covers the first half of 2026, and we’ll update it every quarter from here.

We group results by city and region, based on postcode. The national median of 35 days is worked out across every agreed offer in the dataset.

Why median beats average for property data

We use median rather than average because a handful of unusual cases can throw an average right off. One property that sits unsold for six months, or a listing with a messy date, can drag a whole city’s average up. Median avoids that. 

Median simply means the midpoint: half the homes in a city sold faster than that number, half sold slower. That’s a better answer to the question most people actually want answered, which is how long a normal home near them takes to sell.

How long do homes take to sell near you? 

Click here and enter your postcode to find out.

Days on market by city: the fastest and slowest places to sell a house in the UK

Here’s how every major UK city ranks, based on the median number of days from listing to agreed offer, using Alto’s data from January to June 2026. The fastest cities get there in under three weeks. The slowest take closer to two months.

Top 10 fastest selling cities

Top 10 slowest selling cities

Speed of sale drivers: why homes sell faster in some UK cities than others

The data from the Speed of Sale Index reveals that the fastest cities cluster in the north of England and Scotland, where lower prices put homes within reach of more buyers and demand outpaces supply. 

Cardiff breaks that pattern. Prices are higher than in the northern cities on the list, but demand is still strong enough to keep it near the top. Manchester and Sheffield show that speed can hold even at volume, both clearing well over 900 agreed offers in the first half of 2026.

The slower cities are more scattered, running through the Midlands and a handful of higher-priced cathedral and university towns like Cambridge, York and Chester, where fewer buyers can afford to move. Nottingham is the exception, a slower market that still stays busy, recording more agreed offers than any other city in the index.

Why price reductions slow down a sale

Homes that need a price reduction take far longer to sell. Rightmove’s national data for June 2026 shows properties that had their price cut spent an average of 127 days on the market, compared with just 36 days for homes that didn’t need one, a gap of more than three months. 

Getting the price right at listing is one of the biggest factors in how fast a home sells, in the fastest cities in this index and the slowest. A correctly priced home tends to attract serious interest straight away. One that’s priced too high often sits until the price comes down anyway, and by then it’s lost the momentum of being a new listing.

How Scotland’s conveyancing system speeds up property sales

Scotland’s home-buying process works differently to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, which helps explain why many homes sell faster there.

North of the border, sellers have to commission a Home Report before marketing, so the survey and valuation are already done before a property goes live. 

Properties are often marketed ‘offers over’ with a set closing date, so buyers submit their best offer by a deadline instead of negotiating for weeks. Once accepted, solicitors act to formalise the sale, and because most of the legal groundwork happened earlier, that stage moves fast. 

This front-loaded process is what shortens the specific window this index measures: listing to agreed offer.

There’s no single best time to sell a house in the UK

Forget the time of year. Where you live matters more than when you list. A property that reaches an offer in under two weeks isn’t unusual in the fastest UK cities, and one that takes two months isn’t a warning sign in the slowest. Local demand, local pricing and how much stock is on the market decide the pace far more than a national average or the season ever could.

That’s why the most useful comparison for anyone selling is the median for their own city or town, not a UK-wide figure. Enter your postcode into the tool to see what’s normal where you live.

FAQs

How does Alto’s Speed of Sale Index work?

The Speed of Sale Index measures the median time homes take to go from listing to agreed offer, using live data from around a third of UK estate agents. It covers more than 70,000 agreed offers between 1 January and 11 June 2026. 

We use the median, not the average, because a few unusually slow or mis-dated listings can distort an average. The national figure of around 35 days is an offers-weighted estimate. Cities and regions are grouped by postcode.

How is ‘days on market’ calculated?
Days on market is the number of days from a home first being listed to the seller accepting an offer. The Index reports the median, the midpoint where half of homes reach an offer faster and half slower.

What counts as an agreed offer?
An agreed offer is the point where a seller accepts a buyer’s offer. It comes before legal completion, so days to agreed offer measures how quickly a home finds a buyer rather than how long the whole sale takes.

How often is the Index updated?
The Speed of Sale Index is updated every quarter. The current edition covers 1 January to 11 June 2026, and the next will cover the second half of 2026.

How long do homes take to sell in my area?

You can check your own town or city using the interactive tool at the top of this page. Enter your location to see the median time homes take to reach an agreed offer where you live, based on Alto’s live transaction data. 

What is the fastest place to sell a house in the UK?
Glasgow is currently the fastest place to sell a house in the UK, where homes reach an agreed offer in a median of 11 days (based on 164 sales in the first half of 2026). Cardiff is the next fastest at a median of 15 days from 342 sales, followed by Worcester at 16 days, based on 52 sales.

What is the slowest place to sell a house in the UK?
Wakefield is the slowest place to sell a house in the UK, where homes take a median of 63 days to reach an agreed offer across 177 sales in the first half of 2026. Swansea is close behind at a median of 53 days from 178 sales, and Peterborough follows at 49 days from 181.

How does the right software help estate agents speed up a sale?

The right systems can’t change how quickly buyers make offers, but they can stop an agency being the reason a fast deal slows down. 

Sales progression software gives you a live view of every deal, so the chain keeps moving once an offer is agreed instead of losing days to admin. 

Property marketing tools get listings live quickly and match them to applicants already searching, which matters most in the high-demand areas where speed decides who gets first look. 

And winning the instruction in the first place is its own kind of speed: Alto Prospecting helps agents spot likely sellers before the competition does, and agents using it win 22% more instructions.