Residential Mortgage Survey Results for February 2004

Press Releases

30 Mar 2004

Residential Mortgage Survey Results for February 2004

According to the HKMA's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending, activity in residential mortgage loans increased in February.

New loans drawn down during February rose by 31.5% to a twenty-month high of HK$9.5 billion. New approvals in February increased further by 31.7% to HK$12.6 billion and in number terms, by 18.2% to 8,041 cases. The growth of secondary market transactions was particularly strong, rising by 45.5% in value terms and 22.6% in number terms. The number of new applications for mortgages registered an increase of 24.1%.

The proportion of new approvals priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate moved up to 66.7% from 65.2% in January. The proportion of new approvals priced other than with reference to the best lending rate expanded further to 8.0% from 4.5% in January, suggesting increasing popularity of fixed-rate mortgages.

The outstanding amount of mortgage loans increased by 0.3% to HK$523.2 billion.

Improvement in the quality of the mortgage portfolio continues. With the mortgage delinquency ratio dropping to 0.79% from 0.83% in January and the rescheduled loan ratio remaining unchanged at 0.51%, the combined ratio improved to 1.30% from 1.34%.

New loans drawn down for purchasing properties in Mainland China increased to HK$245 million. The amount of outstanding loans at the end of the month was HK$6.6 billion.

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
30 March 2004

Annex

Residential Mortgage Survey

Notes to Annex

  1. The Residential Mortgage Survey is a continuous monthly survey covering 25 authorized institutions in the banking industry.
  2. Residential mortgage loans (RMLs) in this survey are loans (including refinancing loans) to private individuals for the purchase of residential properties, including uncompleted units, but other than those properties under the Home Ownership Scheme, the Private Sector Participation Scheme and the Tenants Purchase Scheme.
  3. Gross new loans made are new mortgage loans drawn down during the surveyed month.
  4. New loans approved are mortgage loans approved during the surveyed month. The loans can either be drawn down in the same month or in the following months. Loans that are approved but not yet drawn, which have implications for the amount of gross new loans made in the following months, are shown under the item "New loans approved during month but not yet drawn".
  5. Delinquency ratio is measured by a ratio of total amount of overdue loans to total outstanding loans.
  6. Rescheduled loan ratio is measured by a ratio of total amount of rescheduled loans to total outstanding loans.
  7. Co-financing schemes refer to those schemes that involve provision of top-up finance by property developer(s) or other co-financier(s) in addition to mortgage loans advanced by authorized institutions. For loans associated with co-financing schemes, only the portion of loans advanced by reporting institutions is included in this survey.
  8. Average loan-to-value ratio and average contractual life for new loans approved during the surveyed month are average figures weighted by the amount of new loans approved during the surveyed month by individual reporting institutions.
  9. Loans written off over the past 12 months as a percentage of the average outstanding loans is calculated as: total value of loans written off during the past 12-month period as a percentage of the average outstanding loan value over the 12-month period [i.e. (opening + closing), 2].
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Last revision date : 30 March 2004