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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
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 August declined by 23.3% to HK$19.9 billion compared with July.
New loans approved fell by 8.2% to HK$34.2 billion. The decline was mainly due to reductions of HK$1.1 billion or 18.2% in primary market transactions and of HK$2.7 billion or 9.8% in approvals for secondary market transactions. Conversely, approvals for refinancing loans increased by HK$0.7 billion or 19.5%. The number of new applications increased to 19,441 compared with 18,855 in July.
Around 47% of the new mortgage loans approved in August were priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate, compared with 55% in July. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate (mostly HIBOR) increased to 49.8% in August from 39.2% in July.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.9% to HK$618.0 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio fell marginally to 0.05% and 0.11% respectively in August.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Thomas Chan, Communications Chief, at 2878 1480 or
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1802
Ends/Friday, September 25, 2009
Issued at HKT 18:08
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