Twenty7tec has reported a decline in mortgage searches across most categories in February 2025, with remortgage activity seeing the biggest annual drop. Compared to January, purchase mortgage searches fell by 0.05%, while remortgage searches dropped by 5.39%. Buy-to-let purchase and remortgage searches also declined, down 1.85% and 6.13% respectively.
Year-on-year comparisons show an even sharper decline in activity. Overall, purchase mortgage searches were down 3.61% compared to February 2024, while remortgage searches plummeted by 29.90%. Buy-to-let purchase searches fell 14.23%, and buy-to-let remortgage searches were down 24.12%. Residential purchase mortgage searches dipped 2.01% year-on-year, with residential remortgage searches down by 32.27%.
First-time buyer searches remained more stable, showing a modest 0.44% increase month-on-month, though they declined by 0.62% compared to February 2024.
The data also highlighted trends in fixed-rate product searches. Two-year fixed mortgages accounted for 41.05% of all fixed mortgage searches, slightly down from 41.13% in February 2024. Three- to five-year fixed product searches remained steady at 35.71%, while five- to ten-year fixed mortgages made up 23.24%, a slight increase from 23.14% last year.
Despite the decline in searches, Twenty7tec reported an increase in affordability criteria use, which surged by 39.9% month-on-month and 78.5% compared to February 2024. The use of affordability criteria in mortgage searches for 2025 so far is now 57.8% higher than in the same period last year.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, said: “February 2025 was a slightly slower month than we might have hoped for. There were some strong performances in the volumes of first time buyer mortgage searches but we plateaued in purchase mortgage searches overall.
“February 2024 was such a strong month and, indeed, the whole start to 2024 was so strong, that any subsequent years are going to struggle to compare. But away from those figures and compared to any other year, 2025 is off to a really good start.
“In particular, February 2025 was busy for First Time Buyers with the month recording the highest ever proportion of FTBs in the mortgage searches at 22.51%. New products and improved rates in the upper LTV ranges (90% and 95%) helped attract FTBs, it seems.
“March will be a telling month as Easter is later this year although eyes will inevitably turn to the Bank of England rate decision on the 20th as the MPC tries to balance the need for a growing, fully functioning market with inflationary pressures. We look forward to reporting on the outcomes in a few weeks’ time.”
