"We had 105,782 more searches than in July 2023, as the good weather, the promise of lower interest rates, and greater stability led to greater market confidence."
- Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec
There were over 100,000 more searches by mortgage brokers on the Twenty7tec platform in July, compared to the same period in 2023, while searches across the whole of 2024 to date are up by 800,000 compared to the previous year.
This comes as the platform recorded a new all-time high for product availability in July and higher still mid-month, with availability peaking on 18th July at 22,872 product variations.
Broken down by sector, purchase mortgage searches rose 13.67% month-on-month and 28.67% annually. Remortgage searches were up 8.41% monthly and 3.77% annually, while buy-to-let purchase searches rose 9.48% monthly and 25.59% annually. First-time buyer searches also rose by 12% both month-on-month and annually.
The data also shows that two-year fixed rate mortgages now account for 45.52% of all fixed product searches, with three to five-year fixes at 34.28% and five to 10-year searches at 20.20%.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, commented: “It’s been a hot summer for brokers, lenders, and house buyers so far. In July 2024, we had 105,782 more searches than in July 2023, as the good weather, the promise of lower interest rates, and greater stability led to greater market confidence.
“In fact, year-to-date, we have now had over 800,000 more mortgage searches than for the same period in 2023.
“We also reached a new all-time high for product availability at month end in July 2024 and higher still mid-month, with availability peaking on 18 July at 22,872 product variations. The new record is around 10% higher than the pre-pandemic record set on 1 March 2020.
“There have never been more products available at the following max LTV levels: 75%, 80%, 85%, and 95%.
“Fixed mortgages are at their lowest proportion of the market for six months, but still ahead of long-term averages.
“July 2024 saw the highest proportion of mortgage searches for properties valued over £500k for six months: 20.55% of all mortgage searches for the month.”
