Significant increase in sales across every region in the UK

Mortgage sales for the UK increased by £3.4 billion in May, up 25.4% on the previous month, according to Equifax Touchstone analysis of the intermediary marketplace.

Buy-to-let figures jumped 26.1% (£0.55 billion) to £2.7 billion, with residential up 25.2% (£2.88 billion) to £14.3 billion. Overall, mortgage sales for the month grew to £17.0 billion.

Every region across the UK witnessed growth in sales.  Northern Ireland experienced the largest increase of 36.3%, followed by the North East (30.1%) and London (28.7%).

John Driscoll, Director at Equifax Touchstone, said: “Following weak figures last month, prompted by government intervention to cool buy-to-let property sales and election uncertainty, mortgage sales have rebounded in quite spectacular fashion, hitting a monthly high for 2017 of £17 billion, with every single region experiencing notable growth.  The outlook for the market however remains murky as issues such as political uncertainty linger; but we could see this sales boost continue into the summer months.”

The data from Equifax Touchstone, which covers the majority of the intermediated lending market, shows that the average value of a residential mortgage in May was £200,338 (2016: £194,005) and £155,473 for buy-to-let (2016: £160,729).

Equifax Touchstone utilises intermediary and customer profiling tools to provide financial services providers with a detailed understanding of their marketplace and client base.

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For further information please contact:

Sally Moore, Sonam Patel or Alastair Doyle
Four Broadgate
Email: Equifax@fourbroadgate.com
Telephone: +44(0) 20 3697 4200

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Notes to editors:

Equifax Touchstone Limited is one of the Equifax group companies based in the UK. Equifax Touchstone is registered in Scotland No: SC11340. Registered Office: Exchange Tower, 19 Canning Street, Edinburgh, Scotland, EH3 8EH.

Equifax Touchstone

Equifax Touchstone is a leading provider of strategic intermediary intelligence to financial product providers, delivering powerful benefits to its users. It operates a shared investment product data exchange with information provided by over 90 of the UK’s leading financial services companies.  It also operates the MyTouchstone database which is powered by the collective sales data of 77 major product providers, fund managers and platforms and inputs from thousands of intermediaries to help them understand how they perform compared to the other firms in their post area and across the UK.

About Equifax

Equifax, Inc. (“Equifax”) is a global information solutions company that uses trusted unique data, innovative analytics, technology and industry expertise to power organizations and individuals around the world by transforming knowledge into insights that help make more informed business and personal decisions. The company organizes, assimilates and analyzes data on more than 820 million consumers and more than 91 million businesses worldwide, and its database includes employee data contributed from more than 7,100 employers.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Ga., Equifax operates or has investments in 24 countries in North America, Central and South America, Europe and the Asia Pacific region. It is a member of Standard & Poor's (S&P) 500® Index, and its common stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol EFX. Equifax employs approximately 9,700 employees worldwide.

Some noteworthy achievements for the company include: Named to the Top 100 American Banker FinTech Forward list (2015-2016); named a Top Technology Provider on the FinTech 100 list (2004-2016); named an InformationWeek Elite 100 Winner (2014-2015); named a Top Workplace by Atlanta Journal Constitution (2013-2016); named one of Fortune’s World’s Most Admired Companies (2011-2015); named one of Forbes’ World’s 100 Most Innovative Companies (2015-2016).

 For more information, visit www.equifax.com.