"We’ve seen much of the pent-up demand in prior Decembers come into the market in the subsequent January, so we’re hopeful that this period will once again be busy."
- Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec
Despite a seasonal slowdown in the mortgage market during December, activity remained 10% higher than in December 2023 and could lead to a busy January, the latest data from Twenty7tec shows.
December activity slowed in line with seasonal trends, as the Bank of England held interest rates in its 19th December meeting.
As a result, purchase mortgage searches fell by 38% compared to November, while remortgage searches were down by 33% and buy-to-let searches fell by 35%.
However, on the rate decision day, Twenty7tec saw record high number of mortgage products on its systems with 24,264 available.
In addition, December saw purchase searches up almost 10% compared with December 2023, with buy-to-let searches up 0.3% and first-time buyer searches rising 4.64%.
Two-year fixed rates are currently accounting for 42% of all product searches, with three to five-year fixes making up 35% of searches and five to 10-year products accounting for 23%.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, commented: “As expected, December activity slowed even though we had a Bank of England rate decision just before Christmas. We’ve seen much of the pent-up demand in prior Decembers come into the market in the subsequent January, so we’re hopeful that this period will once again be busy. If there had been an interest rate drop in late December, I think we’d be predicting a very busy market for the next few weeks.
“On the rate decision day - 19 December 2024 - we saw record high number of mortgage products on our systems with 24,264 available.
“There’s been talk in the market of the biggest ever Boxing Day bounce - when people begin to look at new properties, which will result in busier times for advisers over coming weeks.
“January is also likely to be busy - especially in the second half - with self-employed individuals looking for new mortgages as their tax bills are due January 31st and financial clarity means that more of them make decisions at this time of year about buying, remortgaging or moving home. 2024 was the busiest ever year on record for self-employed people looking for mortgages on our systems, 7.47% on the prior year.”
