What does the mortgage market look like after Lockdow...

Twenty7Tec provides another rundown on the mortgage market two weeks after lockdown 2.0 ended.

Following its analysis of the mortgage market in the height of the second lockdown, the mortgage technology platform has revealed its final lockdown update.

Mortgage searches

Mortgage searches are now just under 80% of the year’s high on a seven-day rolling period. In prior years, this week is often among the busiest for mortgage searches.

Buy-to-let (BTL) has also dropped to 89.18% of yearly highs – down 5.3% on last week’s figure.

Meanwhile, residential searches are at 77.95% of the year’s high on a seven-day basis.

ESIS documents

Overall, European Standardised Information Sheet (ESIS) document numbers are down 6% on last week at 83.68%.

Buy-to-let ESIS docs have reached 87.83%, down 6.3% on last week, while residential ESIS docs are at 81% - down 5.9% on the previous week.

According to James Tucker, chief executive officer and founder of Twenty7Tec, the levels have only now just dipped below those that peaked in spring.

He says: “The market has been operating at incredibly high levels for months now, but we believe that we are likely to see the usual pre-Christmas ebb over coming days.”

“That said, December 1 ranked as the 20th busiest day for BTL mortgage searches all year as buyers were clearly looking to beat the stamp duty deadline. Their slightly later deadline to benefit from the stamp duty holiday is down to BTL mortgages being slightly quicker to process than residential mortgages.”

In fact, buy-to-let searches formed 20.45% of all searches and 22.31% of all ESIS documents prepared in week four of lockdown – down 2.9% and 0.9% respectively.

Tucker adds: “Documents fare a little better than searches this week, but the picture is still one of less activity than we might expect at this time of year. That’s due to a combination of factors, including broader economic uncertainty and the end of the stamp duty holiday having propped prior weeks’ activity.”