Twenty7tec has reported a year-on-year rise in mortgage searches of 7.96% across 2024.

The first time buyer market set records in real terms for total searches (17.687m up 5.02% on the prior year).

The data also shows a new annual high for self-employed mortgage searches which are up 7.47% year-on-year, while the Twenty7Tec platform received over one million self employed mortgage searches.

Combined salary averages were £77,028 across all mortgage searches in 2024, up 9.52% on the prior year. Combined salaries are up 29.64% since 2021’s average of £59.4k

Green mortgage searches were also up 100.73% compared to 2023. buy-to-let  green mortgages were up 67.41% year-on-year whereas purchase green mortgages were up 111.62%.

Nathan Reilly, director at Twenty7tec, said: “We’ve seen an increased number of total mortgage searches again year-on-year. But the picture is nuanced. The increases overall mask a drop off in remortgage searches and a large rise in residential purchase searches.

“In 2020, mortgage rates were historically low, driven by central banks slashing interest rates to support economies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fixed-rate mortgages were particularly popular as borrowers sought to lock in these favorable rates amidst economic uncertainty.

“However, we can see that advisers explored multiple options and scenarios, comparing rates for fixed and variable mortgages as they tried to help their customers to navigate a rapidly changing financial landscape. This contributed to a higher average number of searches per person during that time.

“Interestingly, whilst 2020 was the hot year for fixed rate mortgages, last year this figure dropped with one in seven people opting for a different type of product.”

PURCHASE V REMORTGAGE

Twenty7Tec said it was the busiest ever year for purchase mortgage searches – up 13.86% on the prior year and up 8.07% on the previous record year for purchase searches (2022).

It was also the busiest ever year for remortgage searches – up 5.82% on the prior year and up 5.5% on the previous record year for purchase searches (2023).

In 2024, purchase mortgage searches represented 53.95% of all searches on the platform and remortgages represented 46.05%. That’s at the higher end of the purchase v remortgages ratio, with remortgages representing between 36% and 48% of all mortgage searches over the past few years.

BUY-TO-LET

Buy-to-let purchase mortgage searches were up 6.54% from 2023, while buy-to-let remortgage searches were up 4.23%.

However, in the buy-to-let  market, the proportion of searches for purchase came in at 36.31% which is at the lower end of recent year’s expectations, with remortgaging dominating the balance of searches (63.69%) – it has been a new high, in a record year for total buy-to-let  mortgage searches on our platform.

Reilly said: “Whilst these buy-to-let remortgage figures set a new record at 2.25m mortgage searches, the purchase buy-to-let  was only the third best year on record, 11.7% down on 2022.”

RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY

Residential purchase searches set a new high – up 16.05% year-on-year. Residential remortgage searches also set a new benchmark – up 8.10% year-on-year.

ESIS

2024 saw a record number of total ESIS documents prepared and saw records set for Purchase (however not for Remortgage (2022) or buy-to-let (2023))

• All documents were up 6.57% on 2023

• Buy-to-let was up 7.52% on 2023

• Purchase was up 19.87% on 2023

• Remortgage was down 5.88% on 2023

Reilly added: “The total number of ESIS documents produced through our platform increased 6.57% year-on-year – broadly in line with the increased number of mortgage searches. But the devil is in the detail with residential purchase ESIS document volumes up 19.87% and buy-to-let  up 7.52% but remortgaging documents were down 5.88% over the course of the year.”

PRODUCT AVAILABILITY

On an average 2024 day, there were 21,964 product variants available. This was a large increase on 2023 – up 34.54% on daily availability.

This is a record and during the year new records were set for total products available on a specific day (19 December 2024 with 24,264  products) and at December 2024 for both highest products available on a daily average (24,029) and most at month end (with 24,064 products).

Reilly said:“With more products on the market than ever before, and new records being set it’s vital that advisers have the latest information at their fingertips, otherwise customers will get wise and move elsewhere. That’s where good technology comes in to support advisers and streamline the customer experience.”