The number of searches for remortgage products fell by 7.3% month-on-month in June, and annual searches dropped by almost a quarter (24.8%), Twenty7tec has found.

The adviser tech provider's mortgage market activity report revealed that purchase mortgages dropped by 7.4% month-on-month in June, with searches also falling by 1.3% annually.

Despite the drops in searches, the purchase against remortgage balance in June 2024 favoured purchase searches, which equated to 56%.

Buy-to-let (BTL) purchase searches also dropped monthly (7.5%) and annually (2.3%), while BTL remortgage searches also fell by 10% and 24.6% respectively.

Director at Twenty7tec, Nathan Reilly, said: "I think that there were some nerves ahead of the General Election, with mortgage search volumes down compared to prior months and also against the same month last year. Now that a new Government is in place it will be interesting to see how quickly things settle back down.

“BTL search volumes were at their lowest since August last year (excluding December, which is always a slower month). We also hit the lowest levels of ESIS documents prepared for remortgages since April 2021 (again, excluding Decembers). Finally, purchase mortgage ESIS documents are at their lowest since November 2022 (excluding Decembers).

"A particular change of note is the remortgage market where we are down 24.4% compared to the volumes in the same month last year.

"Finally, we saw a drop of 11.3% in searches for £1m+ valuation properties, often a bellwether of how busy the market is going to be in general."

In terms of mortgage fixes, two-year products accounted for 45.63 of all fixed products searches, compared to 42.62 in June 2023.

Three to five-year fixed products made up 34.5% of product searches, up from 33.7% in June 2023, while five to 10-year products accounted for 19.9% of products, a drop from 23.7% in the same period.

Chief executive officer at Twenty7tec, James Tucker, added: "The market slowed in June 2024 after the busiest ever H1 on record for mortgage searches.

"With a General Election looming, it was no surprise that this happened with all parties seeking greater clarity as to what comes next. The second half of 2024 will be determined by the Bank of England, new views from Treasury and the directions given by the new Housing Minister.

"Hopefully, we'll have greater certainty for those looking to invest in the residential property market. After a breathless start to the year, it may well soon be time to take a deep breath and go again."

---