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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
According to the 23 authorised institutions (AIs) which participate in the HKMA's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending, new mortgage loans drawn down during September rose by 17.0% to HK$23.3 billion compared with August.
New loans approved fell by 2.5% to HK$33.3 billion. The decline was mainly due to reduction of HK$1.2 billion or 24.6% in primary market transactions and of HK$0.8 billion or 3.4% in approvals for secondary market transactions. By contrast, approvals for refinancing loans increased by HK$1.2 billion or 26.1%. The number of new applications increased slightly to 19,519 compared with 19,441 in August.
Around 42% of the new mortgage loans approved in September were priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate, compared with 47% in August. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate (mostly HIBOR) increased to 54.5% in September from 49.8% in August.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 1.3% to HK$626.0 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio remained stable at 0.05% and 0.11% respectively in September.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Peggy Lo, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1687 or
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1802
Ends/Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Issued at HKT 16:31
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