As well as this, first-time buyers are at their lowest proportion of mortgage searches since June 2020 and searches for mortgage products in the 95% loan-to-value (LTV) range have also dropped, falling to half the volume they were at the time the guarantee scheme was introduced.

Meanwhile, buy-to-let (BTL) had its second best month of 2021 in October and fixed mortgages now constitute a greater percentage of the total than at any time since Twenty7Tec began reporting the monthly mortgage figures.

In another first, European Standardised Information Sheets (ESIS) for remortgaging came close to overtaking purchase ESIS documents this past week.

Nine of the 10 busiest days in 2021 for remortgaging ESIS documents were in October 2021 and October saw the six single busiest days for mortgage searches where one of the applicants was retired.

James Tucker, 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%-100% LTV range, we believe that the pre-Christmas mortgage market is slowing a little.

“BTL remains strong, with five of the eight busiest days this year all within October 2021. BTL is picking up the slack from first-time buyers.”