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 October declined by 9.5% to HK$21.1 billion compared with September.
New loans approved fell by 13.1% to HK$29.0 billion. The decline was distributed across all types of property transaction. Approvals for primary market transactions declined by HK$1.3 billion or 34.5%, approvals for secondary market transactions declined by HK$3.0 billion or 12.7%, and approvals for refinancing loans declined by HK$0.04 billion or 0.6%. The number of new applications declined to 16,461 compared with 19,519 in September.
Around 42% of the new mortgage loans approved in October were priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate (mostly HIBOR) edged up to 54.9% in October from 54.5% in September.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.9% to HK$631.6 billion.
Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio fell slightly to 0.04% and 0.10% respectively in October.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1802 or
Natalie Wu, Officer (Communications), at 2878 8246
Hong Kong Monetary Authority
25 November 2009