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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 November declined by 1.2% to HK$20.9 billion compared with October.
New loans approved fell by 11.1% to HK$25.8 billion. The decrease was due to reduction of HK$3.5 billion or 16.7% in secondary market transactions and of HK$0.3 billion or 4.6% in approvals for refinancing loans. By contrast, approvals for primary market transactions increased by HK$0.5 billion or 20.1%. The number of new applications dropped to 14,418 compared with 16,461 in October.
Around 41% of the new mortgage loans approved was priced with reference to best lending rates in November, the majority of which were in the price range of 2% to less than 2.25%. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR rose to 56.6% in November from 53.8% in October.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.9% to HK$637.0 billion.
Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.04% and 0.10% respectively in November.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Peggy Lo, Manager (Communication), at 2878 1687 or
Hing-Fung Wong, Manager (Communication), at 2878 1802
Ends/Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Issued at HKT 16:32
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