Last month’s numbers were up by 72 per cent compared to May.
The most activity in June was seen in the demand for purchase mortgages, which reached 750,000 searches and accounted for 63 per cent of client interest. First-time buyers made up 19 per cent of these searches.
On a monthly basis, searches for standard residential mortgages were up 78 per cent in June to 769,069 and buy to let mortgage searches rose 49 per cent to 211,465.
Help to buy interest increased 79 per cent to 47,888 searches and shared ownership searches went up 96 per cent to 35,372 searches.
Demand breakdown
Interest for properties of all values were up in June. The biggest jumps were seen in the demand for properties worth under £150,000 which saw a 74 per cent monthly change and properties worth between £150,000 to £249,999, where demand rose by 76 per cent.
Fixed rate mortgages accounted for nearly all interest in June, accounting for 1.16 million of the 1.2 million searches.
Mortgages with 75-80 per cent loan to value (LTV) were most popular with 206,121 searches. This was followed by 85-90 per cent LTV mortgages at 159,374 searches and 90-95 per cent LTV mortgages with 141,130 searches.
Niki Cooke, head of intermediary at Twenty7Tec, said: “This is where the mismatch is evident: only 2.5 per cent of products available are in the 90- 95 per cent LTV range, whereas, 16.4 per cent of all searches are here.
“This is going to prove tempting to some lenders who are willing to take a risk.
“Perhaps it will be late summer when the furlough schemes are withdrawn and a clearer economic picture becomes available, but it will happen.”
Demand outstripping supply
The number of documents prepared for mortgages did not meet the demand for products in June, with documentation volumes staying under 20,000 compared to 50,000 searches.
Cooke added: “Mortgage search volumes have had a V-shaped recovery – having rebounded significantly, over recent weeks. However, the level of documents prepared are only just now getting back to pre-lockdown highs. We should see documents reach those highs in the next few days.
“There’s demand in the market that’s not being satisfied by the products available. We believe that this gap is in no small part down to the lenders’ attitudes to short- and medium-term default risk, operational capacity and house price uncertainty.”
