Residential Mortgage Survey Results for January 2005

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 January decreased by 9.8% to HK$12.4 billion.

New loans approved by the AIs during the month declined by 2.4% to HK$14.8 billion. Within this total, approvals for primary market transactions increased by HK$0.9 billion (37.5%) while approvals for secondary market transactions and refinancings declined by HK$0.9 billion (11.0%) and HK$0.4 billion (8.7%) respectively.

The average contractual life of newly approved loans increased to 238 months, the longest since mid-1998.

90.1% of the new loan approvals were priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate, up from 87.2% in December 2004. The proportion of approvals for fixed-rate mortgages contracted further to 0.1%.

The outstanding amount of mortgage loans stood at HK$529.0 billion, an increase of a little over HK$1 billion compared with the previous month.

The mortgage delinquency ratio improved further to 0.36% from 0.38% in December 2004. With the rescheduled loan ratio declining to 0.45% from 0.47%, the combined ratio improved to 0.81% from 0.85% in December 2004.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Jasmin Fung, Manager (Press), at 2878 8246 or
Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
24 February 2005

Annex

Notes to Annex