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The following is issued on behalf of the Hong Kong Monetary Authority:
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority announced the results of the residential mortgage survey for August 2010.
New mortgage loans drawn down during August rose by 27.8% to HK$33.1 billion compared with July.
New loans approved decreased by 1.3% to HK$40.3 billion. Approvals for primary market transactions dropped by HK$1.8 billion or 31.8%, while those for secondary market transactions and refinancing transactions increased by HK$0.8 billion, or 2.7%, and HK$0.5 billion, or 7.4%, respectively. The number of new applications fell by 8.6% to 23,663.
Around 10% of the new mortgage loans approved in August were priced with reference to best lending rates. The majority of these loans were in the price range of 2% to less than 2.25%. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR increased to 89.5% from 87.4% in July.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans grew by 1.9% to HK$706.7 billion.
Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.02% and 0.05% respectively in August.
Ends/Monday, September 27, 2010
Issued at HKT 16:51
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