Residential Mortgage Survey Results for December 2008

According to the 23 authorized institutions (AIs) which participate in the HKMA's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending, new mortgage loans drawn down during December 2008 decreased by 11.0% to HK$7.2 billion compared with November 2008.

New loans approved increased by 22.8% to HK$10.4 billion. The increase was due to increases of HK$1.0 billion (+71.3%) in approvals for primary market transactions and of HK$1.1 billion (+18.8%) in approvals for the secondary market, which more than offset the HK$0.1 billion (-8.7%) reduction in approvals for refinancing loans. The number of new applications increased by 14.8%.

The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate fell to 3.3% from 15.0% in November, while the proportion of new approvals priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate rose to 17.7% from 9.0% over the same period.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans decreased by 2.1% to HK$588 billion.

The mortgage delinquency ratio remained unchanged at 0.05% while the rescheduled loan ratio rose slightly to 0.14%. The combined ratio rose to 0.19% from 0.18% in November.

Annex

For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Communications Chief, at 2878 1480 or
Peggy Lo, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1687

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
29 January 2009