How long will it take to sell your house? This new online tool will tell you...

Want to put your house on the market? Wondering how long it might take to sell – especially if you've already found the (next) home of your dreams? No one enjoys that nail-biting period of waiting for an offer, wondering if one will ever come and how long it will take. But what if there was some magical way of finding out?

• 11 ways to sell your house quickly: our guide to a swift sale

Hail the power of the internet and a new online tool that helps you determine just that, using data local to you. You simply click on to Local House Market Insights, type in your postcode and it will show you local property sales data, tracking the time periods between initial listings and the point at which properties were officially listed as 'sold' by the Land Registry. That way, you can get a good idea of how long it might take to sell your home, according to your postcode.

But that's not all. It will also show the difference between the initial asking price and the price the property sold for, so you can see just how realistic your home's asking price is – and perhaps adjust it to speed things up further. 

James Durr, co-founder of Property Solvers who developed the tool, comments, 'What we've found is that most homeowners are completely in the dark about how long a house sale actually takes. This leads to buyers losing out on their dream homes due to unexpected time delays in the sale process. Many sellers are also left high and dry as their buyers fail to meet their deadlines.'

The most recent data available represents house sales across England and Wales in the 12 months to June 2019. Wondering where properties sell fastest? Unsurprisingly, it's east central London. Properties in this prime area of London sell in just 10 weeks. And the slowest property market has been found in Hemel Hempstead, where it takes 19 weeks on average to sell a house. 

• Find out how to sell a house or flat in our guide.