Weekly mortgage search volumes were at just over 87% of the year’s highest figure – down 0.5% on the week before, its analysis showed.

Meanwhile residential search volumes were nearly at 85% of the 2020 high – this was a reduction of 1.9% on the previous week.

Buy-to-let volumes, however, remained strong according to Twenty7Tec which revealed they had increased 2.3% on the week before and were now at over 94% of the year’s high.

James Tucker, CEO of Twenty7Tec, said: “Buy-to-let had a definite slump in the run up to lockdown 2.0 and troughed on 4 November, the day [before] this second lockdown began.

“However, since that low, on a seven-day rolling average, we’ve seen quite a return of buy-to-let search volumes and a smaller but definite recovery in buy-to-let documents being prepared.

“Any drop in mortgage demand prior to lockdowns – and we have seen this each time regionally and nationally – is offset as soon as the actual lockdown begins. The demand doesn’t want to stay pent up for too long.

ESIS documents

When it came to weekly mortgage ESIS documentation, figures were at 88.97% of the year’s highest figure, down 2.7% on the week before.

Weekly residential mortgage ESIS figures were at 87.22% of the year’s highest figure, and had fallen 3.2% on the week before.

Buy-to-let figures had also dropped by 0.5% compared to the previous week, with figures at 89.2% of the year’s peak.

Tucker added: “This week is traditionally very busy in the run up to the peak period that runs from beginning October to mid-December.

“This year, two factors have combined to make it even busier: the stamp duty holiday end date and the longer lead times to get a mortgage approved.

“We believe that these factors will sustain the levels of searches and ESIS documents for at least the next three weeks. It’s worth remembering that we are still at least 10% busier now for both residential and buy-to-let than we were in our busy springtime.”