Drew Wotherspoon, director of marketing at www.charcol.co.uk, commented: "Purchase activity continues to maintain dominance over remortgaging, as it has done for the last 12 months.
“The only time when remortgaging has accounted for more business during the last year was in February, but I suspect this had more to do with the poor weather keeping purchasers tucked up indoors than remortgaging proving popular.
"For those borrowers who are in a position to remortgage it would seem that they are waiting for some movement in bank rate, or at least some more definitive information as to when it will move. Whilst this strategy is understandable, increasing numbers of borrowers could be considerably better off if they moved their home loan now. As ever, getting advice on your own situation is absolutely the right thing to do."
According to John Charcol there is little change in the product preference of most borrowers, with the cost of fixed rates and the chance that rates will remain low for some time to come, putting consumers off fixing.
And first-time buyers were thin on the ground.
"The number of first time buyers arranging a mortgage continues to be tiny, with the group accounting for just 5.4% of all transactions with John Charcol in June,” said Wotherspoon. “This is the lowest level it has been since December 2008 and suggests that a combination of strict lender criteria and inherent nervousness in the market continues to severely affect the amount of new entrants. This group desperately needs more competition in the 90% LTV market."
