Mortgage Brain: ESIS numbers return to pre-pandemic levels

Mortgage Brain has seen the number of European Standardised Information Sheets (ESIS) generated through its sourcing systems maintain its recovery to reach the same levels as those seen before the pandemic.

Last week, ESIS volumes increased by 3% compared to the week before, and now stand at just 0.26% below pre-pandemic levels.

Volumes have continued their steady increase and are stable, having been within 11% of pre-pandemic levels for seven weeks in a row.

Product numbers continue slow recovery

The volume of residential purchase ESIS produced has been higher than pre‒pandemic levels for eight weeks, since the reopening of the English housing market.

This increase has been even more pronounced of late, at around 10% above the levels seen before COVID-19 hit the UK for the last four weeks.

Buy-to-let (BTL) purchase ESIS produced last week reached 7% higher than before COVID-19.

For residential purchase, ESIS volumes for cases of 80% to 85% loan-to-value (LTV) rose to around 9% higher than pre-pandemic levels, representing almost a quarter (22%) of all ESIS produced.

The volume of higher LTV buy-to-let ESIS has been higher than pre-pandemic levels for seven weeks.

While product numbers fell marginally for the second consecutive week, they remain on a long-term upward trend.

Last week, product numbers declined by 1.6%, following a 0.9% drop the week before, resulting in there being 9,031 mortgage products available.

This was up by 21.6% in the lowest point of the COVID-19 crisis in the week ending 12 April, but remained down by 38.5% on the nine-week average to 16 March.

Mark Lofthouse (pictured), CEO at Mortgage Brain, said: “That ESIS volumes are stable and now at virtually the same levels seen before COVID-19 is astonishing.

“The way that the housing market has bounced back, and maintained that recovery, speaks volumes about the overall strength of demand among borrowers to get on with purchasing their next home and moving up the housing ladder.

“It’s also notable that we are seeing a significant increase in purchase activity across the board.

“With residential, BTL and second homes all benefiting from the stamp duty holiday, there is clearly both residential interest and some investors believe now is the perfect opportunity to increase their portfolios.”