Compared to January 2025, the number of purchase mortgage searches saw a slight decline of 0.05%, while remortgage searches dropped by 5.39%. Buy-to-let purchase mortgage searches also fell by 1.85%, and buy-to-let remortgage searches declined by 6.13%. Residential purchase mortgage searches were down by 2.28%, with residential remortgage searches seeing a sharper decrease of 5.64%. However, searches by first-time buyers showed a small increase of 0.44%.
When comparing February 2025 to the same month in 2024, purchase mortgage searches experienced a 3.61% decline, while remortgage searches plummeted by 29.90%. Buy-to-let purchase mortgage searches dropped by 14.23%, and buy-to-let remortgage searches were down by 24.12%. Residential purchase mortgage searches decreased slightly by 2.01%, whereas residential remortgage searches recorded a more significant 32.27% drop. First-time buyer searches also saw a modest decline of 0.62% year-on-year.
For fixed rate product searches, two-year fixed mortgages accounted for 41.05% of all searches, remaining nearly unchanged from 41.13% in February 2024, whereas searches for three- to five-year fixed mortgages made up 35.71% of all fixed product searches, closely aligning with the 35.73% recorded a year earlier. Meanwhile, five- to ten-year fixed mortgages saw a slight increase, now making up 23.24% of all fixed mortgage searches compared to 23.14% in February 2024.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, says:
“February 2025 was a slightly slower month than we might have hoped for. There were some strong performances in the volumes of first time buyer mortgage searches but we plateaued in purchase mortgage searches overall.
“February 2024 was such a strong month and, indeed, the whole start to 2024 was so strong, that any subsequent years are going to struggle to compare. But away from those figures and compared to any other year, 2025 is off to a really good start.
“In particular, February 2025 was busy for First Time Buyers with the month recording the highest ever proportion of FTBs in the mortgage searches at 22.51%. New products and improved rates in the upper LTV ranges (90% and 95%) helped attract FTBs, it seems.
“March will be a telling month as Easter is later this year although eyes will inevitably turn to the Bank of England rate decision on the 20th as the MPC tries to balance the need for a growing, fully functioning market with inflationary pressures. We look forward to reporting on the outcomes in a few weeks’ time.”
