Residential Mortgage Survey Results for April 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 April increased by 30.6% to HK$17.8 billion, mainly due to the draw down of loans approved in March.

New loans approved by the AIs also increased, by 17.6% to HK$22.4 billion. The growth was due to the increases in approvals for secondary market transactions and refinancing loans by 31.3% and 10.2% respectively. By contrast, approvals for primary market transactions declined by more than one quarter (25.1%). The number of new applications increased modestly by 7.4%

The average contractual life of newly approved loans increased further to 251 months from 250 months in March.

The proportion of new loan approvals priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate declined to 83.0%, from 93.7% in March.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans rose by 0.6% to HK$536.7 billion.

The mortgage delinquency ratio improved further to 0.26% from 0.29% in March. With the rescheduled loan ratio edging down to 0.41% from 0.42%, the combined ratio improved to 0.67% from 0.71% in March.

For further enquiries, please contact:

Hing-Fung Wong, Resource Co-ordinator, at 2878 1802 or
Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
25 May 2005

Annex

Notes to Annex