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 May increased by 42.5% to HK$15.2 billion compared with April.
New loans approved increased by 28.4% to HK$28.1 billion, mainly driven by increases of 22.6% or HK$3.6 billion in approvals for secondary market transactions and of 48.1% or HK$2.1 billion in approvals for primary market transactions. Refinancing loans also rose by HK$0.5 billion. The number of new applications increased to 19,419 compared with 18,455 in April.
Around 53% of the new mortgage loans approved in May were priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate, compared with 28.6% in April. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate (mostly HIBOR) increased to 31.9% in May from 29.9% in April.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.8% to HK$593.8 billion.
Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.05% and 0.13% respectively in May.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Communications Chief, at 2878 1480 or
Peggy Lo, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1687
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
25 June 2009