Six to twelve months is the honest answer for a prepared seller, and preparation itself often takes as long again. The variation is almost entirely in two stages: how ready your records were when you started, and how the buyer is paying.
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Preparation: weeks to months
Three years of statements a stranger can follow, a documented add back schedule and a lease you have read. If the books have been informal this is the longest stage and the most valuable, because everything after it moves faster. Sellers who skip it move the same work into diligence, where it costs credibility as well as time.
Marketing to accepted offer: two to four months
Listing or approaching buyers, screening, meetings and offers. A realistic price shortens this more than anything else. A listing that sits for four months with no offers is a price signal, not a marketing problem, and reducing publicly is worse than starting close to the evidence.
Offer to closing: two to four months
Diligence, lender underwriting if the buyer is borrowing, lease consent, license transfers and legal drafting. The lender is usually the long pole and cannot be hurried by either side. Landlord consent runs in parallel and should be started the day exclusivity is granted rather than a month later.
Other questions people ask
What makes a sale take longer than a year?
Almost always records that did not support what the seller claimed, or a price the market did not agree with. Both are fixed before marketing rather than during.
Can a broker speed it up?
They can shorten marketing and screening and keep diligence moving. They cannot compress a lender's underwriting or a landlord's consent.
Is it faster to sell to an employee?
Often, because there is no marketing stage and no stranger's diligence. It is slower if that employee needs to arrange financing from scratch.