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 September 2008 decreased by 4.6% to HK$11.6 billion compared with August 2008.
New loans approved increased by 7.8% to HK$14.5 billion. The increase was mainly due to increases of HK$0.9 billion (+109.7%) in approvals for primary market transactions and of HK$0.2 billion (+5.9%) in approvals for refinancing loans. Meanwhile, the approval for secondary market transactions remained little changed at HK$9.9 billion. The number of new applications increased by 18.5%.
The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate increased to 83.1% from 82.8% in August.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.2% to HK$596.7 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio and rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.05% and 0.14% respectively. The combined ratio remained at a record low of 0.19% in September.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Senior Manager (Press), at 2878 1480 or
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Press), at 2878 1802
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
27 October 2008