New data released by Twenty7Tec has revealed remortgage searches on its platform soared by 21.9% between May and June of this year.
This comes as the Bank of England has continued to push up the base rate, with lenders following suit by increasing rates on their products.
Technology provider Twenty7Tec also said purchase mortgage searches on its platform were up 0.6% in June compared with May, with Buy To Let mortgage searches up 11.1% in the same period.
Searches by first-time buyers (FTB) were also up 1.0% nationwide, although FTBs as a percentage of the market dropped to their lowest level since September 2022 and their second lowest in over three years.
Overall, Twenty7Tec said the month of June was the second busiest ever month for mortgage searches on their platform. (1,747,323 v 1,852,718 in March 2023).
With regards to what products people were searching for, two-year fixed mortgages accounted for 42.62% of all fixed product searches compared to just 21.35% in June 2022. Three- to five-year fixed mortgages accounted for 33.69% of all fixed product searches compared to 40.96% a year ago, and five- to 10-year fixed mortgages now account for 23.69% compared to 36.14% a year ago
“June 2023 saw the Bank of England raise rates further. The market seemed to have priced it in ahead of time and so the week before the rise was very busy, as was the week after when thousands of product changes were made,” said Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec:
“Product availability is now down to their lowest levels, year-to-date and are attempting to handle higher volumes of mortgage queries.
In particular, the market saw a huge uplift in remortgage searches – up 21.9% on the prior month – alongside a 25% hike in remortgage ESIS documents prepared.
It’s worth noting that in the 18 months since we began reporting green mortgage searches, 24th June 2023 was the first day without any searches for green mortgages at all.”
