Mortgage searches fell across the board between November and December, but a rebound is expected in January.
According to Twenty7tec’s Mortgage Market Report for December, purchase mortgage searches declined by 37.7% month-on-month, while remortgage searches fell by 32.9% during the same period.
On the buy-to-let (BTL) side, BTL purchase mortgage searches decreased by 35% and BTL remortgage searches went down by 35.5% between November and December.
Residential purchase mortgage searches recorded the largest decrease at 3.84%, while residential remortgage searches dropped by 32% during the same period.
First-time buyer searches contracted by 3.67% month-on-month, according to the report.
The report also found that, compared to December 2023, purchase mortgage searches rose by 9.58% over the period, while remortgage searches dropped by 17.4%.
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Within BTL mortgage searches, purchase searches increased by 0.3% and remortgage searches decreased by 5.95%.
Residential purchase mortgage searches increased by 11.36% year-on-year, while residential remortgage searches fell by 21.65%.
First-time buyer searches in December 2024 were 4.64% higher than the same period the year before.
Twenty7tec said that two-year fixed rates made up around 41.9% of all fixed rate searches in December 2024, a fall from 49.7% the year prior.
Additionally, 3-5-year fixed rates made up around 35.4%, a slight increase from around 32% in December 2023, while 5-10-year fixed rates accounted for 22.6% of all fixed rate searches, a rise from 18.4% in the same period last year.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, said that the slowdown in December activity was as “expected”, even though there was a Bank of England base rate decision prior to Christmas.
He explained: “We’ve seen much of the pent-up demand in prior Decembers come into the market in the subsequent January, so we’re hopeful that this period will once again be busy. If there had been an interest rate drop in late December, I think we’d be predicting a very busy market for the next few weeks.
“On the rate decision day – 19 December 2024 – we saw [a] record-high number of mortgage products on our systems with 24,264 available.”
Reilly said there had been talk in the market of the “biggest ever Boxing Day bounce”, where people look at new properties post-Christmas, so this could lead to “busier times” for advisers in the next few weeks.
“January is also likely to be busy – especially in the second half – with self-employed individuals looking for new mortgages as their tax bills are due 31 January, and financial clarity means that more of them make decisions at this time of year about buying, remortgaging or moving home. 2024 was the busiest ever year on record for self-employed people looking for mortgages on our systems, 7.47% on the prior year,” he added.
