Remortgaging leads mortgage market recovery as searches top 1.9 million

Twenty7tec recorded more than 1.9 million mortgage searches as remortgaging drove a sharp post-summer increase in adviser activity.

Residential remortgage searches jumped 44% year on year in September as borrowers returned to the mortgage market following the quieter summer period, according to new data from Twenty7tec.

The latest Mortgage Market Snapshot recorded 1,912,458 mortgage searches during September, up 23% from August and 15% compared with the same month last year.

Residential activity increased 22% month on month and 19% year on year, but the most significant movement came from remortgaging.

Twenty7tec recorded 860,951 residential remortgage searches during September, an increase of 40% in a single month and 44% year on year.

Nathan Reilly, chief customer officer at Twenty7tec (pictured above), commented: “Remortgaging is doing a huge amount of the work.

“Searches increased 40% in a month and are 44% higher than this time last year.

“When we see growth on that scale, it tells us that existing homeowners reviewing their borrowing are becoming an increasingly important part of adviser workloads.”

Residential purchase searches reached 617,709 in September, increasing 8% from August but just 1% year on year.

First-time buyer searches rose 3% month on month to 138,791 but remained 4% below September last year.

BTL also recorded a substantial month-on-month increase during September.

Overall BTL searches rose 27% to 295,007, while BTL remortgage searches increased 34%.

However, the annual picture remained divided.

Overall BTL activity was 4% lower than September last year and BTL purchase searches remained 21% down year on year.

BTL remortgage searches, by comparison, were 4% higher.