"Hopefully we will see the health of this segment of the market improve in time as lender appetite grows."
Overall ESIS numbers have stabilised at pre-pandemic levels, with a small increase of 2.4% over the past week. This is the seventh consecutive week in which there has been a rise in ESIS volumes, leaving them just 8.5% below the levels seen pre-pandemic.
However, the number of mortgage products available to borrowers fell last week, following five weeks of rises.
Product numbers dropped by 3% to a total of 8,746. While this is up by 17.8% on the lowest point seen during the Covid-19 pandemic during April, it remains down by 40.4% on the nine-week average to 16th March.
Mortgage Brain says the reduction is "in some part down to lenders removing higher LTV products", with numbers down by 4.4% on the previous week.
Despite this reduction, lending between 80% and 85% increased by the same margin. Lending above 90% remained level and represented just 1.3% of the ESIS generated on Mortgage Brain’s sourcing systems, sharply down on the 6.6% average seen before the pandemic. In contrast, the LTV business mix below 80% has returned to the same levels seen before the crisis hit.
Mark Lofthouse, CEO at Mortgage Brain, commented: “The mortgage market has enjoyed quite the turnaround in the last six weeks, with product numbers and ESIS volumes in a far healthier position today than many would have dared imagine.
“While overall product numbers have dropped slightly, this is to be expected as lenders constantly review their ranges and get a feel for the lay of the land in this new normal. This is clearly the case at the higher LTV end of the market, which represents a far smaller proportion of business now than we saw before the pandemic took hold. Hopefully we will see the health of this segment of the market improve in time as lender appetite grows.”
