"February tends to surpass January for performance, but given that this January was our busiest ever for total mortgage searches, it’s hard to predict."
January 2023 saw more mortgage searches than ever before in a single month - up 6.4% on the previous best-ever month in September 2022, according to data from Twenty7Tec's mortgage platform.
Its figures show that ten of the top 20 ever busiest days for mortgage searches on the platform were in January 2023. Three of the top ten busiest ever days for first-time buyers were also in the last two weeks of January.
January was also the busiest ever month for remortgages but only the 13th busiest ever for purchase mortgage searches.
This was the fifth consecutive month that Twenty7Tec created more ESIS documents for remortgages than for purchases - despite purchase searches outstripping remortgage searches.
There was a split in market activity when it came to volumes of mortgage searches based on valuations. In January 2023, Twenty7Tec saw fewer sub £250k searches than in December 2022 but 5.5% more searches for properties valued at over £1m.
The end of the month also saw a huge uptick in self-employed mortgage searches as the self-assessment tax period ended on January 31st.
Looking at product choice, January ended with over 14,988 products and variants available, up 11.4% compared to the end of the prior month.
Products with a maximum LTV of 90% saw the largest increase, rising by 14.6%.
Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, said: “January 2023 was the start that every adviser would have wanted for 2023: busy and interesting. The Bank of England rate change will, we believe, keep advisers busy over the coming days. February tends to surpass January for performance, but given that this January was our busiest ever for total mortgage searches, it’s hard to predict.
“It will remain important that advisers continue to monitor rate and policy changes given the broader economic circumstances and the sustained regulatory push for best advice is more essential than ever.”
