Data from mortgage advice technology firm Twenty7tec has shown a 7.96% increase in mortgage searches in 2024 compared to the previous year.
The average number of product searches declined to 1.7, down from 2.6 in 2020.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, said: “We’ve seen an increased number of total mortgage searches again year on year. But the picture is nuanced.
“The increases overall mask a drop off in remortgage searches and a large rise in residential purchase searches.
“In 2020, mortgage rates were historically low, driven by central banks slashing interest rates to support economies during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Reilly added: “Fixed-rate mortgages were particularly popular as borrowers sought to lock in these favorable rates amidst economic uncertainty.
“However, we can see that advisers explored multiple options and scenarios, comparing rates for fixed and variable mortgages as they tried to help their customers to navigate a rapidly changing financial landscape.
“This contributed to a higher average number of searches per person during that time.”
He said: “Interestingly, whilst 2020 was the hot year for fixed rate mortgages, last year this figure dropped with one in seven people opting for a different type of product.”
In 2024, first-time buyer mortgage searches totalled £17.687m, marking a 5.02% increase year on year, despite a sluggish overall market.
Self-employed mortgage searches also hit a new annual high, up 7.47% year on year, reaching over one million searches for the first time.
The combined salary average across mortgage searches in 2024 was £77,028, an increase of 9.52% from the previous year and up 29.64% from £59,400 in 2021.
Green mortgage searches rose significantly, with overall searches increasing by 100.73%.
Buy-to-let (BTL) green mortgages were up 67.41%, while purchase green mortgages rose by 111.62%.
Purchase mortgage searches grew by 13.86% compared to the previous year, setting a new record.
Remortgage searches also reached a new high, up 5.82% year on year.
In 2024, purchase searches represented 53.95% of all searches on the platform, while remortgages accounted for 46.05%.
Historically, remortgages have made up between 36% and 48% of total mortgage searches in recent years.
BTL purchase mortgage searches increased by 6.54% from 2023, while BTL remortgage searches rose by 4.23%.
However, in the BTL sector, only 36.31% of searches were for purchases, with remortgaging dominating at 63.69%.
Reilly said: “Whilst these buy-to-let remortgage figures set a new record at 2.25m mortgage searches, the purchase buy-to-let was only the third best year on record, 11.7% down on 2022.”
In the residential market, purchase searches surged 16.05% year on year, while remortgage searches also hit a new benchmark, increasing by 8.10%.
In 2024, the total number of ESIS documents prepared saw a year-on-year increase of 6.57%.
Purchase ESIS documents rose by 19.87%, and BTL documents increased by 7.52%, while remortgage documents dropped by 5.88%.
Reilly added: “The total number of ESIS documents produced through our platform increased 6.57% year on year – broadly in line with the increased number of mortgage searches.
“But the devil is in the detail with residential purchase ESIS document volumes up 19.87% and Buy To Let up 7.52% but remortgaging documents were down 5.88% over the course of the year.”
On average, there were 21,964 mortgage product variants available daily in 2024, a significant increase of 34.54% from 2023.
This set a new record, with 24,264 products available on a single day in December 2024.
He said: “With more products on the market than ever before, and new records being set it’s vital that advisers have the latest information at their fingertips, otherwise customers will get wise and move elsewhere.
“That’s where good technology comes in to support advisers and streamline the customer experience.”
