The Twenty7tec monthly mortgage market report showed that searches for purchase mortgage products were 13.7% higher in July and remortgage searches increased by 8.4%. 

Excluding product transfer queries, the split between purchase and remortgage searches was 56% to 44% in July.  

Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, said: “June’s slippages were more than recovered in July 2024 for both purchase and remortgage search volumes. Purchase search volumes remain high compared to remortgage search volumes.” 

Compared to the same month last year, there were 105,782 more searches made by mortgage brokers on behalf of clients.  

Reilly said it had been a “hot summer for brokers, lenders, and house buyers so far”, and “the good weather, the promise of lower interest rates, and greater stability led to greater market confidence”. 

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In total, there were 1.73 million searches carried out on Twenty7tec in July. The firm said so far this year, mortgage queries made through the platform were more than 800,000 higher than in 2023. 

 

More mortgage products available 

Total product availability rose 0.96% month-on-month, and Twenty7tec said in the middle of the month, the number of products reached an all-time high. 

By the end of July, Twenty7tec recorded 22,350 available products, 214 more than the month before. 

Reilly said: “We also reached a new all-time high for product availability at month end in July 2024 and higher still mid-month, with availability peaking on 18 July at 22,872 product variations. The new record is around 10% higher than the pre-pandemic record set on 1 March 2020.  

“There have never been more products available at the following max loan to value (LTV) levels: 75%, 80%, 85%, and 95%.” 

Some 45.5% of searches during the month were for two-year fixed deals and shorter, the same as the previous two months. This was up from a share of 42.6 a year earlier. 

Searches for three- to five-year fixed mortgages accounted to 34.2% of fixed product searches, compared to 33.6% in 2023. 

A fifth of queries were for five- to 10-year fixed rates, lower than a share of 23.6% a year ago. 

Twenty7tec also noted a fall in the share of searches for fixed rate deals.  

“Fixed mortgages are at their lowest proportion of the market for six months, but still ahead of long-term averages,” Reilly added. 

 

Rise in BTL activity 

Searches for buy-to-let purchase and remortgage products increased by 10.1% and 13.5% respectively. 

Of the demand for buy-to-let mortgage finance, Reilly said: “July saw a rebound back to the levels of demand in May recouping the ground and momentum lost in June 2024.” 

There were 314,913 queries for products for first-time buyers in July, a 15.3% rise on the number of searches made in June. The average LTV was 81% in July and the average loan size required came to £220,849.