Twenty7Tec’s October market report found that, despite the seasonal trend for house buying in autumn, overall purchase search activity and first-time buyer product enquiries cooled off in October.
First-time buyer searches were at their lowest proportion of total mortgage searches since June 2020.
Meanwhile, the production of remortgage ESIS documents came close to overtaking purchase documents for the first time since the technology firm’s market report series began.
Nine of the 10 busiest days in 2021 for remortgaging ESIS documents were in October.
Broker searches for products revealed that demand for 95 per cent loan to value (LTV) deals has dropped – falling to levels that are less than half the volume of searches carried out when the mortgage guarantee scheme was launched in April.
Buy-to-let business, however, remains strong. October was the second best month of the year for buy-to-let after March. Five of the eight busiest days for buy-to-let searches all fell within last month.
James Tucker (pictured), founder of Twenty7Tec, said: “The market is changing, and fast. We should be in the midst of a house purchase boom right now as we traditionally are in the 11 weeks prior to Christmas. Instead, the purchase market is not as firm as we’d expect, and remortgages appear to be the order of the day.
“With a drop off in first time buyer activity and a lower proportion of searches coming in the 95 per cent to 100 per cent LTV range, we believe that the pre-Christmas mortgage market is slowing a little.”
