At 11:47am on Thursday 25 March, Twenty7Tec handled its one millionth mortgage document of 2021.

At the same point last year, the technology platform had processed 925,610 mortgage documents.

Phil Bailey, director at Twenty7Tec, said: “If we look back on 2020 and 2019 figures, this year is well ahead in terms of the volume of mortgage documents being produced. We’re at least a week ahead of where we were last year – even though the start of 2020 was one of the busiest we had experienced.

“That’s even more remarkable because the number of mortgage searches that brokers are performing has also gone up by 25% for every document produced.

“It’s a sign that the market remains red hot. The difference now is that, with the stamp duty extension, the government-backed 95% scheme just days away from go live, and new products coming to market every day, there’s finally more supply in the market to meet the massive demand we have seen over recent months.

“Mortgage product availability and tighter lending criteria throttled supply for the first three quarters of this financial year. Lenders have to make appropriate risk-based decisions based on the evidence in front of them. Now that the Chancellor has extended the furlough scheme to September and put in place the 95% product guarantee, we’re seeing greater lender-side confidence in the market.

“Product availability is still significantly down on the start of last year when we regularly had around 20,000 products in the market. But this does appear to be the time when the market will now spring forward.”