(ANS) No.1 There is NO!! SUCH THING as a normal house sale, each property is different based upon a wide number of variable conditions. And therefore you cannot say how long it will take from first advertising to contract completion.

No.2 You MUST bear in mind that as far as property selling (sales) goes, at the present time we are ALL faced with extremely rare & unusual conditions. YES! its a buyers market as house prices have fallen by large % amounts in the last few months as the housing price bubble has now burst.

**BUT even if you are keen to sell and even if you have an extremely keen buyer who wants your house then the finally problem which is likely to completely snooker the whole process is that lenders (mortgage companies) wont lend the funds for the purchase, why? due to the credit crunch. Financial institutions lack of confidence in each other, i.e. bank to bank which is endemic at the moment.

No.3 To improve the chances of a house sale or to vastly increase interest in your property you MUST look at DRESSING your property. That means getting an independent objective third party opinion about what needs updating, changing or moving around as in fittings, fixtures, furniture, redecorating & so forth. DON’T attempt to do the analysis yourself because 9 times out of 10 your just NOT going to be objective enough. i.e. cannot see the trees for the wood etc.

Hope that helps?

Kind Regards Ivan.