Take advantage of the stamp duty holiday with these Harrogate homes under £500,000

Why is this important now? Well, the average time a semi-detached house remains on the market in North Yorkshire is now 136 days, according to the latest Time On Market report published by property website home.co.uk.

Although that’s up by four days on September 2019, the rate of increase is actually slower than for any other property type. Flats, for example, stay on the market for an average of 238 days - 12 per cent longer than a year ago.

Slice the data a different way - and look at the average selling time by number of bedrooms - and three-bed properties do best. The average time a three-bed property spends on the market is 144 days, which is the same as it was in September 2019 and is less time than for properties with any other number of bedrooms (one-bed homes, for example, take on average 237 days to sell).

This is relevant now because if we take these average selling times as a guide, it means that a semi-detached house needs to reach the market by mid-November, and a three-bed property should be put up for sale about a week earlier.

For bigger properties, the urgency is greater still. Detached homes need to be marketed from next Friday, and five-bedroom properties - which spend an average of 207 days on the market - should have been put up for sale almost two weeks ago.

Since three-bed semis are the nation’s favourite kind of property - at least, judging by the comparatively short amount of time they spend on the market - here are three, all for below £500,000, that have already been brought to market in our area. Grab them quick - while the holiday lasts!

Moorside is a spacious family home just south of the Rudding Park estate at Follifoot, south of Harrogate. In addition to its three bedrooms it has two bathrooms, a landing study area, eaves storage, a large, open-plan dining room/living kitchen and two reception rooms, one of them over 26 feet long. Outside, there’s plenty of off-street parking on the drive, as well as a south-facing garden to the rear, with far-reaching views over the field beyond.

At Shaw Mills, west of the A61 between Harrogate and Ripon, Laurel House is a stone-built cottage facing away from the terrace it forms the end of. It has three bedrooms, a house bathroom, kitchen and two reception rooms. Outside, there’s off-street parking for one car on the drive, a front lawned garden and an enclosed back courtyard with log store, garden shed and adjoining outbuilding.

Finally, 68 Magdalens Road is a semi-detached townhouse on the north side of Ripon. Now in need of modernisation, it has three bedrooms, a shower room, kitchen-diner, two reception rooms and a cellar with two storage rooms. Outside, there’s a front garden with a path leading to a rear patio area and outdoor garden room adjoining the house.