Although social distancing restrictions have led to difficult but inevitable declines in activity over recent weeks, the last week ended with a number of surprising increases in daily activity.
According to Twenty7Tec’s activity monitor, purchase searches had increased by 13.13 per cent and mortgage searches rose by 4.96 per cent when compared with Thursday a week earlier.
Similarly, ESIS documents prepared had increased on the same day a week earlier and also the previous day with incremental increases of 3.52 per cent and 1.29 per cent respectively.
Undoubtedly, the market is prepared for difficult times ahead, especially now the UK enters a further three weeks of isolation and remote working, but given the amount of negative news, it seemed important to share the little victories our resilient sector is still enjoying.
James Tucker, CEO of mortgage technology provider Twenty7Tec, commented:
“Yesterday, we saw the first uplift in the volume of mortgage searches for several weeks. The volume of searches versus the same day the week prior were up 4.96%.
“And the number of ESIS documents prepared were up the same day last week by 3.52% and even up on the prior day (which rarely happens) by 1.29%.
“Finally, the total value of mortgages being looked into also rose 1.66% versus the same day last week.
“The big spike was on purchase searches where there was an uplift of 13.13% versus last week.
“Whilst one swallow does not a summer make, I think that the market needs to hear good news in a timely fashion. It’s definitely something for brokers, lenders and other providers to build on.
“Purchase mortgages currently represent 31% of daily searches up from a long-term low of 25% last week. This additional level of interest in purchase mortgages is a step back towards the long-term average of 55% purchase to 45% remortgage.”
