"Volumes were driven by the remortgage market in particular, perhaps seeking certainty ahead of this week’s Budget and the interest rate decision later this month?"
Purchase mortgage searches by brokers dipped between January and February, while first-time buyer activity dropped to its lowest level since the start of the pandemic, according to the latest data from Twenty7tec.
Purchase mortgage searches were down 4.5% in February compared to January 2024, but remain 11.3% higher than in February 2023.
Searches by first-time buyers were down 9.5% compared to January but were up 7.1% compared to February 2023.
Remortgage searches were up 5.0% compared to January 2024 and up 38.9% compared to a year ago, while buy-to-let searches increased by 0.8% and 12.5% respectively.
Two-year fixed rates accounted for 48.72% of all fixed product searches in February, compared to 40.84% in February 2023.
Three to five-year fixes accounted for 32.57% of all searches, down from 34.06% twelve months ago, while five to 10-year fixes fell from 25.10% of all searches to 18.71%.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, said: “February was another remarkably busy month and would have surpassed the records set in January 2024 but for its fewer working days. Volumes were driven by the remortgage market in particular, perhaps seeking certainty ahead of this week’s Budget and the interest rate decision later this month? Unsurprisingly, in light of those two imminent public policy decisions, February 2024 also set the record for the busiest-ever month for fixed mortgage searches.
“We saw a drop off in first-time buyer activity to levels not seen since April 2020. Hopefully activity levels will come back when the Bank of England and Treasury have made their announcements.
“Lenders have been amending rates quite a lot this month and we have also seen an increase of 2.4% in total products available - very close to our all-time highs set in February 2020.”
