A 32% drop in furlough-related mortgage searches in May shows that the market is starting to normalise, says Legal & General Mortgage Club.

The data, garnered from its SmartrCriteria tool, describes the second monthly drop for furlough friendly mortgage searches, following a 40% monthly decrease in April.

Overall search activity, L&G Mortgage Club says, is back to “more normal” levels after it fell 20% between March and May.

It adds that one search term in particular has grown rapidly – rapid remortgaging. The club says that searches for homeowners who wish to remortgage after less than six months increase by 40%

Other search term risers included interest in capital raising mortgages, for which searches increased by 26% on a monthly basis in May and searches for visa-friendly mortgages, “suggesting interest in UK property from overseas buyers remains strong.”

And mortgages for borrowers with satisfied defaults remained in the top three overall criteria, which the club says that mortgage payment holiday take up “is having a lasting impact of mortgage purchase trends.”

L&G Mortgage Club head of mortgage transformation and operations Clare Beardmore says: “We are now seeing the early signs that things may be returning to ‘normal’ with search activity more closely resembling pre-pandemic conditions.”