According to Twenty7tec’s figures, the quietest month was April with around 1.3 million searches.
Its latest figures reveal that buy-to-let mortgage searches were down 18 per cent compared to June 2023.
Purchase and remortgage searches decreased by 13 per cent and 15 per cent respectively month-on-month.
First-time buyer searches also decreased by around 9.3 per cent compared to the prior month. First-time buyers searches by volume grew from 16.5 per cent in June to 17.4 per cent in July.
The purchase-remortgage balance was still in favour of remortgages at 51 per cent compared to 49 per cent for purchases.
Two-year fixes most popular product
The report continued that total product availability fell by 14 per cent, with 15,302 products available. The latter is around 88 per cent of 2023’s high.
Two-year fixed rates made up 44.1 per cent of all fixed rate product searches, around double compared to the same time last year.
Three to five-year fixed rates accounted for 34.6 per cent of fixed product searches, down from 41.6 per cent a year ago.
Five to 10-year fixed rates constituted 21.4 per cent of fixed rate searches, a decrease from around 36 per cent a year ago.
‘Not all doom and gloom’
Nathan Reilly (pictured), director at Twenty7tecc, said: “July 2023 saw constrained activity compared to the prior month and I think that the market is hoping for better news for the remainder of the second half of the year. It tends to be a little flatter in June and July as heads turn to holidays, with an uptick often beginning in August.
“It’s not all doom and gloom, however: despite dropping 15 per cent compared to the prior month, July 2023 was the fourth busiest month on record for remortgage ESIS documents and seventh for total remortgage searches.”
He added: “In keeping with prior years, we saw an almost 10 per cent drop in the number of first-time buyers’ searches nationwide alongside a 3.9% per cent drop in the average property value they are looking to buy in July 2023.
“Brokers and advisers will continue to feel busier as the average number of searches run per ESIS document produced is also significantly higher than the prior month.”
Reilly said that on the supply side there had been a rise in product availability, adding that there had never been more maximum 70 per cent loan to value (LTV) products on the market. However, he noted that maximum 95 per cent LTV deals were at around 70 per cent of their all-time high levels.
