Purchase mortgage searches were down 9.2% in November and remortgage searches were down 17.1%, according to data from Twenty7tec.
Issuing its findings based on its mortgage platform data for November 2022, Twenty7tec found that total mortgage searches were down 13.1% on the prior month.
Additionally, total first-time buyer mortgage searches were down 7.2%, the average property valuation for purchases (£333,951) was down 1.4%, and for the third month in a row, remortgage ESIS documents produced outnumbered purchase ESIS documents.
James Tucker (pictured), CEO at Twenty7tec, said: “Our mission is to remove the wrinkles from the adviser/customer process, to make it as frictionless as possible. Have we succeeded?
“Well, in 2020, advisers performed on average 5.18 mortgage searches per ESIS document they created.
“That’s a lot of hustle. By 2021, this dropped to 4.02 searches per ESIS document and in 2022, despite the varying rates and greater market uncertainty, this dropped again to 4.001 searches per document.
“What’s clear is that even though we have all been incredibly busy since the beginning of the pandemic, advisers have been able to process more matters efficiently by using the tools at their disposal.
“It’s not mission accomplished, but we’re definitely on track.”
Furthermore, data showed that November was the ninth-busiest month ever for total mortgage searches, with October and September being the two busiest ever months.
Total searches for fixed products continued to drop in November 2022, but tracker searches more than doubled (up 108%) compared to September 2022.
Green mortgages have also been less popular over the past two months, threatening the route to net zero.
In part, this is because green buy-to-let mortgages have been driving growth and total buy-to-let mortgage searches are at their lowest real terms levels in six months.
