Constructed from data from the Trigold mortgage sourcing system, the index the number of sources increased slightly in March but the first quarter taken as a whole shows a 40% increase compared with Q4 2008.
The average number of live products available to mortgage intermediaries rose from 2,983 in February to 3,725 in March – a rise of 742 individual products and an increase of 24.87%, while the average figure is derived from a month in which there was some significant activity as product numbers reached a high of 4601 and fell to a low of 2849.
David Aylmer, marketing and business development director at Trigold, said the increase in product numbers was very encouraging, although it was still some way short of a return to the days where in excess of 60,000 products were available.
He added: “February’s figures which showed product numbers dropping under the 3,000 mark for the first time was of some concern but these statistics show that the market has bounced straight back. Next months’ May Trigold Product Index will, for the first time, include direct products and so it will be interesting to see how this affects the number of searches performed and the average costs.”
