b'At the moment, the market is still very buoyant. And the typical thing talked about is 10 people for every home. (Interviewee 2)Lenders had seen a considerable increase in interest in shared ownership mortgages:Shared ownership accounts for approximately 3% of our total lending book. We were getting one or two cases per week, but were inundated during pandemic. It rose to about 40 cases per week. It has settled to 14 or 15 cases per week. (Interviewee 11)Some providers felt that demand remained strong in part because prospective shared owners were employed in sectors that were relatively protected from the economic uncertainty:What weve seen is a massive spike in interest since the pandemic. Our experience has been that a lot of our buyers have been reasonably well protected. Weve had a lot of public sector workers buy with us, people with relatively secure employment who arent facing mass redundancies. (Interviewee 1)The reduction in stamp duty was also noted as a factor driving demand:Covid has had a positive impact in terms of sales; the cut in stamp duty has made a house purchase more attractive, especially to those who were sitting on the fence. (Interviewee 5)A further factor identified as driving the surge in demand was the removal from the lending market of first time buyer mortgages with low deposits. The meant that shared ownership had become the only option for prospective buyers with small deposits. As one lender noted:A lot of lenders are withdrawing from the high LTV lending space which has driven traffic to other areas. We expect the demand to continue. Its difficult for intermediaries to find 90% LTV mortgages other than through shared ownership at present. (Interviewee 11)Another lender thought that the lockdown had enabled some prospective first time buyers to save money towards a deposit for a shared ownership property:There are other factors at play this year. Most people who buy shared ownership are younger. Theyre typically single, living with their parents. With lockdown, theyre not 17'