January set a record for mortgage searches with enquiries almost doubling on a seasonally quiet December, says Twenty7tec.
The property platform says it handled 1,599,695, up 98.2%, across all searches from a month ago, with purchase enquiries lifting by 101.8% and remortgages rising by 94.3%, making it the busiest ever month for remortgages.
The month was 6.4% higher than the previous best-ever month last September, with 10 of the top 20 ever busiest days for mortgage searches on the platform coming in January.
The firm also reported three of the top ten busiest ever days for first-time buyers on the platform came in the last two weeks of the month.
However, FTB searches represented 17.5% of all enquires in January, slightly down on the previous month, with new buyers continuing to represent a lower proportion of the market compared to the long-term average despite volumes rising.
The business says the end of the month saw “a huge uptick” in self-employed mortgage searches as the self-assessment tax period ended on 31 January.
Across the platform’s range of searches, products with a maximum of 90% loan-to-value rose 14.6%, loans with a maximum of 85% LTV rose 13.1% and offers with a maximum of 60% LTV rose 11.8%.
The month ended with over 14,988 products and variants available, up 11.4% compared to the end of the previous month.
The firm’s data follows the Bank of England’s base rate rise last week to 4% from 3.5%, the 10th hike in a row, as it attempts to calm inflation at 10.5%.
Twenty7tec director Nathan Reilly says: “January 2023 was the start that every adviser would have wanted for 2023: busy and interesting.
“The Bank of England rate change will, we believe, keep advisers busy over the coming days.
“February tends to surpass January for performance, but given that this January was our busiest ever for total mortgage searches, it’s hard to predict.
“It will remain important that advisers continue to monitor rate and policy changes given the broader economic circumstances and the sustained regulatory push for the best advice is more essential than ever.”
