Searches for purchase mortgages fell by 37.7% month-on-month in December to 535,912, Twenty7tec has revealed.

The firm’s latest mortgage report found that in this period, remortgage searches also fell by 32.9% to 449,281, while buy-to-let (BTL) purchase mortgage searches dropped by 35%.

Searches by first-time buyers also decreased by 36.6% month-on-month.

Director at Twenty7tec, Nathan Reilly, said: "As expected, December activity slowed even though we had a Bank of England rate decision just before Christmas. We’ve seen much of the pent-up demand in prior December’s come into the market in the subsequent January, so we’re hopeful that this period will once again be busy. If there had been an interest rate drop in late December, I think we’d be predicting a very busy market for the next few weeks."

Despite this, purchase mortgage searches increased by 9.58% year-on-year in December, while remortgage searches increased by 17.42% in December.

BTL purchase mortgage searches increased slightly in this period by 0.3%, while BTL remortgage searches decreased by 5.95%.

In terms of mortgage lengths, two-year fixed mortgages accounted for 42% of all fixed product searches in December, compared to 49.6% in December 2023.

Meanwhile, three to five-year mortgages accounted for 35.5% of searches, compared to 32% in December 2023, while five to 10-year fixed mortgage searches increased from 18.4% in December 2023 to 22.6% in December 2024.

Reilly concluded: "On the rate decision day - 19 December 2024 - we saw record high number of mortgage products on our systems with 24,264 available.

"There’s been talk in the market of the biggest ever Boxing Day bounce - when people begin to look at new properties, which will result in busier times for advisers over coming weeks.

"January is also likely to be busy - especially in the second half - with self-employed individuals looking for new mortgages as their tax bills are due 31 January and financial clarity means that more of them make decisions at this time of year about buying, remortgaging or moving home. 2024 was the busiest ever year on record for self-employed people looking for mortgages on our systems, 7.47% on the prior year."

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