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 April increased by 19.3% to HK$10.6 billion compared with March.
New loans approved increased by 31.4% to HK$21.9 billion, largely driven by an increase of 41.9% or HK$4.8 billion in approvals for secondary market transactions. Approvals for primary market transactions and refinancing loans also rose by HK$0.4 billion and HK$0.05 billion respectively. The number of new applications increased to 18,455 compared with 13,261 in March.
Around 51% of the new mortgage loans approved in April were priced at more than 2.25% below the best lending rate, compared with 22% in March. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate (mostly HIBOR) increased slightly to 29.9% in April from 29.5% in March.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.4% to HK$589 billion.
Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio held steady at 0.05% and 0.13% respectively in April.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Communications Chief, at 2878 1480 or
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1802
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
26 May 2009