NEW data has revealed where houses in Oldham are selling fastest.

It’s taking an average of 15.93 weeks to sell a property in the Oldham (OL) postcodes, according to a new speed of sale tool by house buying firm Property Solvers.

Properties were selling the fastest in the OL13 postcode, with 45 homes in the area taking 89 days to sell on average,the tool has revealed.

Meanwhile in the OL5 and OL6 postcodes, out of the 39 tracked properties in the 12 months to April 2021, home sellers were waiting 132 days on average from listing to completion.

Updated monthly, the latest data set analysed over 629 property sales across the region between April 2020 and April 2021.

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

House sale transactions have taken on average 112 days to complete across the borough during the pandemic.

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

“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.”

It comes as high street lenders are beginning to offer mortgages to borrowers with a deposit of just 5 per cent under a new government guarantee scheme.

Lloyds, Santander, Barclays, HSBC UK and NatWest will be among the first to launch mortgages under the scheme, with Virgin Money following next month.

Halifax and Barclays have however said that new-build properties will not fall under the scheme.

The number of low deposit mortgages on the market shrank dramatically in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, as lenders became much more cautious about offering “riskier” loans in the tough economy.

The new scheme will tackle this by helping first-time buyers or current home owners secure a mortgage with just a 5 per cent deposit to buy a house for up to £600,000.

It will work by offering lenders the guarantee they need to provide mortgages that cover the other 95 per cent, subject to the usual affordability checks.

Iain McKenzie, chief executive of The Guild of Property Professionals, said: “The resilience of the housing market in the face of coronavirus has seen house prices repeatedly hit new highs, and we expect this trend to continue in the coming months.

“There is the danger that first-time buyers could be increasingly priced out of the market, and this government scheme goes some way towards helping young people.”