According to the 24 authorized institutions (AIs) which participate in the HKMA's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending, new mortgage loans drawn down during May increased by 2.6% to HK$18.3 billion.
However, new loans approved by the AIs decreased by 24.1% to HK$17.0 billion. There was an across-the-board reduction in the number and value of all types of approvals. The number of new applications declined by 32.0%.
The average contractual life of newly approved loans remained unchanged at 251 months.
The proportion of new loan approvals priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate declined markedly to 52.2% from 83.0% in April.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans rose further by 0.6% to HK$540.3 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio improved further to 0.24% from 0.26% in April. With the rescheduled loan ratio edging down to 0.40% from 0.41%, the combined ratio improved to 0.63%1 from 0.67% in April.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Kevin Ip, Manager (Press), at 2878 1687 or
Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
24 June 2005