selling

How long do people stay in a house? What 32,172 recent resales show

How long do people stay in a house before selling? Official survey averages plus our count of 32,172 Land Registry resales from January to June 2026.

4 min read
Last reviewed 4 November 2026
By Your Property Check team

Part 1 of 8

How long do people stay in a house?

General information, not advice. There are two different questions here, and the answers are not the same. The first is how long owners have lived in their home so far, which a household survey can measure. The second is how long a home had been owned by the time it was resold, which Land Registry sale records can show. We give both, and say what each one leaves out.

Part 2 of 8

The official survey number

The English Housing Survey 2022-23 headline report says owner occupiers had lived at their current address for an average of 16.8 years. It says outright owners, who have no mortgage, lived in their current home for longer than mortgagors, at 23.2 years compared with 9.2 years. The average for owner occupiers fell from 17.6 years in 2021-22 to 16.8 years in 2022-23, and the report says this was driven by outright owners. The same report puts private renters at 4.3 years and social renters at 12.2 years. These are averages for people who have not yet moved, not completed stays, and the survey covers England only.

Part 3 of 8

Our count: how long homes were owned before a resale

We count resales in January to June 2026 for which the Land Registry has an earlier recorded sale of the same home, and group them by the gap between the two sales. The earlier sale comes from HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, which covers England and Wales from 1 January 1995.

Holding period	Resales in sample	Share of sample	Typical note
Under 5 years	6,633	20.6%	Includes buyers who resold within a few years
5 to 10 years	9,502	29.5%	The largest single group
10 to 20 years	9,301	28.9%	Almost as common as 5 to 10 years
20 years or more	6,736	20.9%	Measured only back to 1995 records
All four groups	32,172	100%	Shares may not add to exactly 100 because of rounding

Read it this way: about half of the resales (49.8%) came after 10 years or more, and the other half (50.2%) after under 10 years. The middle two groups, 5 to 20 years, hold 58.4% between them.

Part 4 of 8

What the sample includes, and what it does not

The sample is not "all owners" and it is not a measure of how long people intend to stay. Please keep these limits in mind:

Only homes that sold. A home that nobody has sold since 1995 cannot appear, so long stays are under counted. The table describes sellers, not all owners.
Only resales with an earlier sale on record. Of 39,197 sales in the January to June 2026 test window, 32,172 (82%) had one. The rest, such as homes last sold before the records start or with a nominal earlier price, are left out.
A limited area. The sample covers 296 postcode districts: every B district plus 220 chosen at random with a fixed seed. It is not a national count.
Houses and flats only. The earlier sale counted is the latest standard sale of a detached, semi-detached, terraced or flat property priced at £10,000 or more.
A capped ceiling. Because records start in 1995, the longest hold in the sample is about 31 years.
Six months. January to June 2026 is a short window and may differ from other periods.

Part 5 of 8

Why the two numbers differ

A survey asks people who live somewhere today, so it catches long stayers who may never sell. A list of resales catches only those who sold, so it favours people who moved. That is why the survey average of 16.8 years and the resale groups above are not directly comparable. If you want one rule of thumb, say that most sellers in our sample had owned for at least five years, and one in five had owned for two decades.

Part 6 of 8

Does a longer hold mean a bigger gain?

We did not measure price gain in this study, so we make no claim about it. For homes held a long time the tax position can matter more than the gain itself. If you are selling a home that has not been your main residence throughout, see our guides to capital gains tax when you sell a house and private residence relief.

Part 7 of 8

Using this when you plan a sale

Knowing that sellers in our sample had typically owned for 5 to 20 years does not tell you when to sell. What it can tell you is that selling after a short hold is far from unusual: one in five of the resales we counted came within five years. Before you list, check what homes near you sold for, using our sold prices tool, and read how long a sale usually takes in our guide to how long it takes to sell a house. A free house value check shows a sourced range for your postcode.

Part 8 of 8

Method and data month

Counts come from our repeat-sales study of HM Land Registry Price Paid Data, with the test window January to June 2026. Contains HM Land Registry data, Crown copyright and database right 2026, licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Survey figures are from the English Housing Survey 2022-23, which is the report we read in full. This page is general information, not advice.

Our take

A short hold is common, so do not wait for a magic number

There is no standard time to stay. Owners in the survey have lived in their home for 16.8 years on average, but that counts people who have not moved. The common mistake is to compare that figure with resale data, which only includes homes that sold.

In our count of 32,172 homes resold from January to June 2026, about one in five had been owned for under five years and about one in five for 20 years or more. If you are weighing a sale, our free house value check shows an honest range from real Land Registry sold prices in your postcode, with the working shown.

Check my value

Our opinion, drawn from the facts on this page: not advice and not a forecast. We earn from OfferCheck reports and from introducing sellers to cash buyers, so weigh it with that in mind (see our disclosure). We are not authorised or regulated by the FCA.

Questions, answered

Frequently asked questions

How long do people own a home before selling?

In our count of 32,172 resales in January to June 2026, 20.6% came after under 5 years, 29.5% after 5 to 10 years, 28.9% after 10 to 20 years and 20.9% after 20 years or more. This describes homes that sold, not all owners.

Do owners stay longer than they used to?

The English Housing Survey says owner occupiers' average time at their address fell from 17.6 years in 2021-22 to 16.8 years in 2022-23, driven by outright owners. We have not compared earlier years of our own resale count.

Does the holding period change the price gain?

We did not measure price gain in this study, so we make no claim. The count only shows how long homes had been owned when they were resold.

What does the sample include?

Resales from January to June 2026 in 296 postcode districts that have an earlier standard sale on record since 1995, for houses and flats priced at £10,000 or more. It is not a measure of how long people intend to stay.

Where this comes from

Sources

Last reviewed 4 November 2026 by the Your Property Check team. This page is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. For your own situation, speak to a conveyancing solicitor or another qualified professional.