LONDON, November 8, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

The stress of buying or selling a home ages you by two years,¹ according to a new study by an online conveyancing firm.

Psychologists interviewed 200 Britons who have bought or sold a house in the last three months, with more than two-thirds (68 per cent) reporting it accelerated the symptoms of ageing² - according to the research by online coveyancers In-Deed.

Common side effects include hair loss (10 per cent), short-term memory failure (14 per cent) and diminished sex drive (19 per cent), with the process ageing stressed people by 25 months over the typical 15-week house-buying period.

And among the most stressed buyers and sellers, the 'ageing effect' can increase to nearly four years (47 months), according to the study, which was commissioned by online conveyancing service In-Deed

Study leader, psychologist Dr Glenn Wilson comments:

"Periods of prolonged stress and anxiety - such as when buying or selling a home - can seriously take their toll on our wellbeing, with depression, weight loss and even premature ageing a likely outcome."

Those who have bought or sold a house continue to rate it as one of life's most stressful experiences, more traumatic than family arguments (39 per cent) or job interviews (44 per cent) and many report side-effects including sleeplessness and even physical illness.

And the trauma even spills into people's personal lives, with buying a property causing disputes among four in ten couples (41 per cent), nearly as divisive as arguments over money (58 per cent) and housework (47 per cent).

The main stresses include worries about the mortgage approvals (38 per cent) and inefficient or inept lawyers (31 per cent), with more than one in ten (11 per cent) saying their solicitor 'messed them around' and the same number (11 per cent) feeling that the whole legal process simply took too long.

In-deed co-founder Harry Hill comments:

"Conveyancing can be tedious, time-consuming and frustrating, so it's no surprise that it causes so much stress.  At In-Deed, we want to change this, which is why we're introducing technology which simplifies the process making it fast, efficient and user-friendly."

The service can be found at http://www.In-Deed.net.

Notes to editors

All research was conducted by PCP Market Research and carried out in July 2011. Sample was 200 people who had bought or sold a property in the last 3 months. Responses were collected online.

Footnotes

1. When asked "thinking back to the entire home-buying/selling process, and regardless of how long the process actually took, how much older did you FEEL by the end of it?" the mean response was 25 months among those who found the buying/selling process very or quite stressful.
2. 160 respondents agreed that they found the house-buying process 'stressful' or 'very stressful'. Of these, 85 per cent exhibited at least ONE factor identified by psychologists as recognized signs of ageing = 68 per cent (two-thirds) of total base

SOURCE In-Deed