According to Twenty7Tec’s May report purchase searches last month came to 849,845 and accounted for around 68 per cent of searches.
The report said that this was due to the stamp duty holiday effect beginning to wear off as the June deadline approached, along with the fact that there were two bank holidays in May.
Remortgage searches stayed roughly flat, growing by one per cent to 399,843 and accounting for 32 per cent of searches.
First-time buyers (FTB) accounted for nearly 21.57 per cent of May searches, down slightly from April, where FTB’s accounted for 22.51 per cent.
The report found that 95 per cent loan-to-value (LTV) deals accounted for 18 per cent of all mortgage searches on its systems, which was ahead of the year-to-date average of 15 per cent.
There has been a 2.96 per cent growth in products available compared to the prior month, with product volumes rising to more than 12,000 for the first time for over a year. However, this is only a 60 per cent pre-pandemic peak according to mortgage software firm.
The report also noted that the second week of May provided the seven busiest days ever for producing ESIS documents using Twenty7Tec’s system, with 90,000 documents produced.
However, that dropped to 70,000 as of 27 May.
“All ESIS docs have risen all year to mid-May when there’s been a drop as the stamp duty deadline became a reality. The drop off of daily rankings since mid-May is sharp and rather dramatic,” according to Twenty7Tec intermediary head Niki Cooke.
Twenty7Tec CEO James Tucker (pictured) said: “We’ve seen fewer searches in most price and LTV ranges in May, as focus turned to creating ESIS documents which could hit the deadline of 30 June.
“Ironically, just as volumes dropped back further for the second month on the trot, product volumes rose above 12,000 for the first time in over a year. June is going to be interesting.”
