Monthly mortgage searches are up to 8.7% after June’s major drops, new mortgage data has revealed. However, mortgage searches continued to fall for properties valued at over £1m, as they are now down to 2.7%, according to Twenty7Tec.
For the fourth consecutive month, the availability of mortgage products continued to fall. Product availability is now at its lowest since the end September 2021. Product availability is now currently at 76.27% of pre-pandemic highs. This follows on from a previous article from Today’s Conveyancer which showed mortgage approvals dropped for the fifth consecutive month.
Data also showed that fixed mortgage searches remain at 85.83% of all-time highs, whereas Stepped (56.87%), Discount (45.87%), Tracker 46.62%), Capped (44.67%), Variable (44.56%), and Libor (44.29%) are all performing well below their all-time highs.
Although, the searches for green mortgages continue to climb, and seven out of the top 10 busiest days ever for green mortgage searches were in July 2022.
In addition to this, combined salaries are rising for homebuyers, and on the 20th of July the third highest ever daily average for this was recorded at £69,801.
James Tucker, founder and CEO of Twenty7Tec, said of the findings:
“So far this year, we’ve seen 10.5m mortgage searches on the platform. That’s a month quicker than we hit the ten million search milestone in 2021. We’re predicting that 2022 will surpass 2020’s total mortgage search volumes by the middle of September. Bearing in mind how busy 2020 was, that’s quite an achievement. So far this year, we’ve processed one mortgage search every 1.8 seconds.
Product availability is probably one of the key metrics this month. We’re now operating at around three quarters of the pre pandemic highs – down for the fourth month on the trot. We’ve also seen a much greater concentration towards fixed mortgages which are currently performing at around 85% of their all-time highs. Stepped mortgages are at 56% of their all-time highs.
But the availability of Discount, Tracker, Capped, Variable and Libor mortgages are all below 50% of their record highs. Both buyers and lenders are seeking greater certainty and the profile of products available reflects that.
From end June to end July 2022 we saw the largest monthly drop in real terms (and in percentage terms) of mortgage products available since the pandemic-induced handbrake stop in March 2020 which saw the removal of around 3,000 products almost overnight.”
The link for the findings can be found here.
