Residential Mortgage Survey Results for April 2004

Press Releases

28 May 2004

Residential Mortgage Survey Results for April 2004

According to the HKMA's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending, new loans drawn down during April decreased by 12.3% to HK$11.5 billion after recording strong growth in the previous two months. New approvals also declined in April, by 22.7% in value terms, to HK$12.4 billion; and by 21.4% in number terms, to 8,161 cases. This was driven by decreases of 48.6% and 18.3% in approvals for primary market and secondary market transactions respectively, outweighing the 10.2% increase in new approvals for refinancing loans. The number of new applications recorded a decrease of 24.6%.

The proportion of new approvals priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate reduced to 62.9% from 63.8% in March but that for fixed-rate mortgages increased to 10.0% from 8.7% in March.

The outstanding amount of mortgage loans edged up by 0.1% to HK$525.8 billion.

The improvement in the quality of the mortgage portfolio continued. The mortgage delinquency ratio dropped to 0.66% from 0.70% in March while the rescheduled loan ratio increased slightly to 0.50% from 0.49%. The combined ratio improved to 1.15%1 from 1.19%.

"While there was a decline, mortgage lending in April was still high in relation to the average level of the past few years. This minor correction may be good for the overall future development of a more healthy market," commented Mr William Ryback, Deputy Chief Executive of the HKMA.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Jasmin Fung, Manager (Press), at 2878 8246 or
Kevin Ip, Manager (Press), at 2878 1687

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
28 May 2004

1 Not the sum of the two ratios, due to rounding.

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 : 28 May 2004