Fun With Numbers: Pent up supply

Hansard, 1 September 2009:

Sarah Teather: To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what the average length of time was between a home being placed on the market and being sold in the latest period for which figures are available. [287506].

John Healey: We do not collect the data requested.

*ahem*

From the Rightmove website: "Rightmove has over 650,000 properties for sale throughout the UK..."*

HM Revenue & Customs (Table 16.1): Number of residential property transaction completions with value £40,000 or above: 755,000**

So, shouldn't the answer to Ms Teather's question have been "About a year. You could have found that in ten minutes on the Internet"?

*/ahem*

* Plus an unknown figure not advertised on Rightmove, for example properties sold privately or by auctioneers.

** The DCLG (Table 530) gives a figure of 725,000 for 2008 Q3 to 2009 Q2, which includes "some transactions of non-market housing including, Right-to-Buy sales and large scale stock transfers between Local Authorities and Registered Social Landlords". Note 5 says "HMRC estimate that by applying the £40,000 threshold 12% of residential property transactions ... are missed."