HOUSE sales are taking an average of 119 days to complete across the Chard and Ilminster area, according to the latest data.

Professional house buying firm Property Solvers’ speed of sale tool has revealed that it’s taking an average of 17 weeks to sell a property in the TA19 and TA20 postcodes.

Updated monthly, the latest dataset analysed more than 94 property sales across the area between May 2020 and May 2021.

The statistics track the moment a property is listed on Rightmove to the point it’s marked as officially ‘sold’ at the HM Land Registry.

In the TA19 (Ilminster) postcode, out of the 24 tracked properties in the 12 months to May 2021, home sellers were waiting 119 days on average from listing to completion.

In TA20 (Chard), 70 home sellers waited 105 days on average.

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Property Solvers co-founder Ruban Selvanayagam commented: “Although buyer demand hasn’t waned over the course of the pandemic, the length of time for transactions to complete has certainly lengthened.

“Operational activity has still pretty much continued, but the home sales industry - like many others - has had to learn to adapt over the last year.

"Many solicitors, mortgage brokers and other professionals in our sector have been working from home, which has often resulted in administrative and other operational delays.

“However, with positive news around the vaccine roll-out, and as more people gradually return to offices and agencies, we’re cautiously optimistic about things picking up over the course of the year.”