The January Trigold Product Index, constructed from data from the Trigold mortgage sourcing system, has revealed that the number of live mortgage products has dropped to 4,357 - numbers last seen in 2002.
The average number of live products available to mortgage intermediaries fell from 5,198 in December to 4,357 according to Trigold – a fall of 89% which equates to a loss of 841 individual products. Year on year analysis shows that live mortgage product availability dropped from 40,910 in December 2007 to just 4,357 in December 2008. This is a reduction of 89% and equates to 36,553 individual products.
However, while 483,502 mortgage sources were performed in December - down just 1% from November - this indicates a rise in broker activity year on year by some 34%.
David Aylmer, marketing and business development director at Trigold commented on the results saying: “The number of times a UK mortgage broker sources a mortgage for a client via Trigold is seen as a gauge of broker activity in the intermediary mortgage market. The increase in mortgage sourcing performed shows reflects the additional effort required by mortgage brokers to find a deal for their clients.
“More restrictive lending criteria and a reduction in available funds is really having a significant impact on the intermediary advice process. This can be seen both in product availability and also in the fact that there are fewer than 200 products available for those needing loans in excess of 80% LTV. I have no doubt that mortgage product numbers will bounce back at some point but it is looking increasingly unlikely that we will ever return to the peak in the early part of 2007.”
