Broker searches lifted 4.8% to 1.4 million in November compared with the previous month, driven by remortgage enquiries, data from Twenty7tec shows.
The firm says remortgage searches on its platform jumped 10% to 703,297 month-on-month, although the number of intermediaries looking for purchase deals was flat over the period at 672,288.
Buy-to-let mortgage searches rose 1.6% to 260,694 last month, however, in London this jumped 11% to 12,383.
First-time buyer enquiries were down 1.3%.
Two-year fixed-rate mortgages accounted for 47.54% of all fixed product searches in November, three- to five-year fixes made up 32.9%, while five- to ten-year fixes accounted for 19.1%, “the lowest proportion for at least two years,” the platform adds.
Twenty7tec director Nathan Reilly says: “Purchase mortgage searches remained flat in November, but the uplift in volume of remortgage and BTL searches meant that we’ve already surpassed 2022’s total mortgage search tally.
“November was the fourth month in a row that we saw an increase in BTL mortgage search volumes.
“The end of November also saw the year’s high for mortgage product availability [coming in at 18,625] as the Bank of England maintained the status quo around interest rates [for the second month in a row].”
Reilly adds: “Since the BoE’s decision on 2 November, we have seen the market add 3.8% more mortgage products.
“In terms of mortgage products, we are now at 92.31% of the all-time highest number on the market.
“This is a marked improvement on the lows back on 4 July [at 39.63%] when we had considerably fewer products on the market [13,338 deals].
“For those looking for mortgages, average combined salaries have shot up during the course of this year and currently stand at an average of £75,330.43, which is 16% higher than a year ago when the figure was £64,947.10.”
