The house buying process is taking 41% longer than expected according to new research from the Open Property Data Association (OPDA).

On average people expect it to take 88 days to exchange contracts once their offer on the property is accepted, however on average it is taking 124 days, meaning that it takes 36 days longer to exchange contracts than people are planning for.

Maria Harris, chair at OPDA, said: “It’s shocking that exchanging contracts still takes 40% longer than expected, especially given that those expectations aren’t exactly high.  The problem is that the home-buying process is stuck in the past. Embracing digitisation will allow us to modernise and enhance this established process, making it more efficient, seamless and aligned with the needs of the 21st century. Our vision and purpose align with the government’s objectives, and now is the perfect time to come together and drive digital transformation of the property sector.”

Timely communication is a significant barrier to the property transaction process with 40.61% of respondents citing “communications between parties” as the most challenging aspect and 39.47% noted that “chasing for updates” exacerbates the process, leading to uncertainty and frustration.

Another major issue is the repetition inherent in document collection with 62.3% of respondents stating they were asked to provide the same information or documents two to three times and when asked what they thought delayed the process, 44.3% cited property lawyers/conveyancers as the primary culprits while 28.8% pointed to estate agents, and 17.3% placed the blame with mortgage lenders.