More green shoots

This is according to data from moneysupermarket.com, which revealed that the number of homeowners visiting moneysupermarket.com's mortgage channel looking to remortgage soared by 29%, while the number of people looking for a mortgage to move home increased by 13%. moneysupermarket believes the Chancellor's decision to abolish stamp duty on properties under £250,000 for first time buyers seems to have kick started the FTB market, with the number of searches up 17%.

According to moneysupermarket.com, those looking for a mortgage deal are likely to find significantly better offers now than this time last year.

Commenting, Hannah-Mercedes Skenfield, mortgage channel manager at moneysupermarket.com, said: "We saw an instant spike in activity amongst those looking to buy their first home in the week following the Chancellor's announcement on stamp duty in the Budget and we did wonder whether this would be a kneejerk reaction that might not be sustained. However, we can clearly see from our numbers that momentum remains high, and this has spilled over into other homebuyer profiles. What's more encouraging is that rates seem to be improving continually, so people looking for a mortgage should find themselves able to access some pretty good deals as we head towards summer."