With houses in England and Wales taking an average of anything between 78 and 390 days to sell*, depending on where in the country you live, the idea of selling your house before Christmas may seem an impossibility, but there are some steps you can take to improve your chances of securing a buyer before the end of the year.

Winter is a difficult time to sell a house, with November and December proving particularly challenging months. People's focus is generally turning towards Christmas and few are keen to undergo the upheaval of moving house so close to the festive season, so here are our top tips for securing a quick house sale:

1. Ensure your property is looking its best: Brighten up the property by carrying out any decorating touch-ups required, finish off any outstanding DIY jobs, decluttering and make the most of your property's best features to maximise the chances of attracting a buyer quickly.

2. Price your property realistically: If you're not in a rush to sell your property, estate agents will often suggest an asking price significantly higher than the price they actually expect the property to sell at in order to 'test the market' – you never know, you might happen to stumble across a buyer who is keen to move very quickly and is prepared to pay a premium to ensure they secure the property before any other buyers have a chance to view it, but the chances of that are pretty slim, so if you're keen to secure a quick house sale it's important that you price your property realistically in order to attract serious buyers. So how do you find your property's true value? You can get a realistic picture by using a couple of different methods; firstly, take a look on websites like Rightmove, Zoopla and the land registry to find out what similar properties near you have sold for recently, and secondly instead of asking estate agents what sort of figure they'd suggest as an asking price, ask them what figure they're confident they could achieve if they only had 4-6 weeks to secure a buyer – obviously 4-6 weeks wouldn't leave you enough time to complete the sale before Christmas, but it would give you a more realistic idea of what they believe the true value of your property to be, rather than an over-inflated asking price that is completely unachievable.

3. Do as much prep work as you can: Getting your solicitor lined up and, if you're buying another property, ensuring your mortgage offer is in place will speed up the process once you have accepted an offer on your property. Making sure you have as much information about the property to hand as possible, including details of any extensions, improvements or guarantees, will also speed up the process when it comes to answering enquiries from the buyers solicitor.

4. Don't be afraid to chase:  Conveyancers – solicitors who handle the buying and selling of property - deal with a vast number of cases at any one time, so it's worth taking the time to ensure your property sale is high on their list of priority cases, especially if you're keen to get a quick house sale before Christmas. Remaining in constant dialogue with your conveyancer will achieve a couple of things; firstly, it ensures your case is constantly at the forefront of their mind, and secondly - and perhaps more importantly if you're keen to secure a quick house sale - it means you'll be aware of any potential issues or hold-ups as soon as they arise, giving you the opportunity to resolve things before they hold up the sale too much.

5. Consider a trusted, genuine cash buying company: With less than 9 weeks to go, the only way to guarantee a house sale before Christmas is to sell your property to a genuine cash home buying company like Quick Move Now. Do be careful though, many companies claiming to be cash house buyers are in fact brokers, which means they rely on finding an investor who will need to secure a mortgage like any other buyer, meaning in reality it's the same process as selling your house on the open market, but for less than market value. A genuine cash buyer will have funds immediately available (this can be checked using sites like Companies House and Duedil – you would expect to see a current balance of at least £1 million and an annual turnover in excess of £4 million if they're a genuine cash buyer) and have readily-available reviews from their customers. A genuine cash buyer should be able to have the cash in your bank account in as little as 7 days and you should not be required to pay any upfront costs.

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Notes to editors:

Quick Move Now is the UK's largest quick house sale company. Established in 1998, Quick Move Now has bought over 5,000 properties and has an annual turnover of £42 million.

*data taken from Home.co.uk's average time on market statistics