Mortgage mayhem! Technology platform predicts 1m home loan searches this month

Mortgage search platform Twenty7Tec is predicting there could be one million searches for home loans this month.

The technology company, which lets users such as brokers search and apply for mortgages, says there were close to one million searches last month for home loans to help with a purchase and this milestone could be reached in April due to the current levels of demand.

Its latest monthly mortgage report for March shows last month saw five of the 10 busiest ever days for home loan searches on the platform.

The report says March 2022 saw the highest ever monthly total for mortgage searches on the platform - surpassing even the stamp duty driven March 2021 by 60,000 searches.

There were 949,492 searches for home purchase mortgages and 649,047 for a remortgage.

Mortgage search volumes are growing fastest, up 14.64% between February and March, in the £250,000 to £500,000 valuation range, the report says.

The market softened in the 95% loan-to-value though and March 2022 was the weakest month so far this year.

The report showed that properties worth £1m or more now form a larger percentage of the market for property searches than ever before at 4.29%There was a 12.95% monthly rise in searches for properties valued at more than £1m, according to the report.

Nathan Reilly, director of lender relationships at Twenty7Tec, says: "There's a lot of change happening in the mortgage market right now. 

“Demand remains high for both purchase and remortgage mortgages, but inflation-driven interest rate changes are also influencing the volume of searches that we're seeing.
 
"Comparing March 2022 with the two prior Marches is very hard. March 2020 was the beginning of the UK's lockdown and we quickly went from the height of the market to the lows of the month afterwards. March 2021 was the stamp-duty-driven boom of last year. 

“Nonetheless, March 2022 has exceeded both prior years for total mortgage searches and suitability documents created."