Twenty7tec, a prominent technology provider for advisers, has released statistics showing a substantial increase in mortgage market activity in April 2024. The data indicates significant year-over-year growth across various segments, reflecting a buoyant market.
April’s figures reveal an 8.1% increase in purchase mortgage searches from March 2024, with a notable 25.87% rise compared to April 2023. Remortgage searches also saw a robust increase, with a 6.23% month-over-month rise and a substantial 48.03% increase from the previous year. Buy-to-let purchase and remortgage searches grew by 7.93% and 2.50% respectively compared to March 2024, with year-over-year increases of 19.27% and 26.48%.
Residential mortgage searches continued to trend upwards with residential purchase searches up 8.16% month-over-month and 27.82% year-over-year. Residential remortgage searches increased by 7.44% from March 2024 and saw a significant 62.34% rise from April 2023. Additionally, searches by first-time buyers were up 5.68% from March and 13.04% compared to the previous April.
In terms of product preferences, two-year fixed mortgages dominated, accounting for 48.51% of all fixed product searches, up from 42.73% in April 2023. Searches for 3- to 5-year fixed mortgages made up 34.09% of the total, slightly up from 33.19% the previous year, while five- to ten-year fixed mortgages represented 17.40%, a decrease from 24.08% in April 2023.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, commented on the market dynamics: “April 2024 was our third busiest ever month on the platform with over two million mortgage searches in total. The month also saw a new record set for the total products available – with over 21,000 product variations now in the UK mortgage market, a 3.82% rise on the prior month end. We’re seeing a significant level of ESIS documents being produced for purchase mortgages, which is always a good sign.”
Reilly added: “April 2024 saw an unprecedented fourth month on the trot with over 100,000 self-employed mortgage searches. However, their demand was outstripped by the employed who made up over 90% of all mortgage searches for the first time since September 2020 (retired and self-employed made up 9.33% in April 2024). Finally, we saw the average property valuation for a first-time buyer in London break through the £500k mark again for the first time in a year.”
