Remortgage activity is continuing to grow as a proportion of overall mortgage business, according to Paragon’s latest Financial Adviser Confidence Tracking (FACT) Index, based on interviews with 201 mortgage intermediaries.

Intermediaries reported that remortgages for owner-occupiers made up the largest part of their business in Q1 2018, representing 41% of total applications, up from 37% of business five years ago.

Over the same period, first time buyer mortgages have increased from 16% to 18% of intermediary business, with the biggest step-change taking place immediately after the introduction of Help to Buy in April 2013.

However, next time buyer mortgages showed a sharp drop in the first quarter of 2018, down to just 21% of intermediary business. This compares with a relatively consistent share at between 23% and 24% of first quarter business in each year since 2013.

Buy-to-let business comprised 19% of intermediary applications in Q1 2018, up slightly compared with 18% recorded in the first quarter of 2017 but down from 22% five years ago.

On average, intermediaries reported 22.3 mortgage introductions per office in the first quarter of 2018, up from 20.4 at the beginning of last year.