Residential Mortgage Survey Results for July 2007

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 July decreased by 13.5% to HK$14.2 billion. 

New loans approved rose by 0.7% to HK$17.4 billion.  The increase was due to increases of HK$120 million (+3.6%) in approvals for primary market transactions and of HK$81 million (+2.7%) in approvals for refinancing loans, which more than offset the HK$87 million (-0.8%) decrease in approvals for secondary market transactions.  The number of new applications increased by 5.0%.   

The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate increased to 90.9% from 90.3% in June, while the proportion of new approvals priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate or fixed rates decreased to 5.2% from 6.2% over the same period.   

The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.5% to HK$538.6 billion. 

The mortgage delinquency ratio declined further to 0.14%. With the rescheduled loan ratio falling to 0.23% in July, the combined ratio improved to 0.38%¹.  All the three ratios reached record lows in July.

Annex

For further enquiries, please contact:
Sara Yip, Manager (Press), at 2878 8246 or
Hing-fung Wong, Officer (Press), at 2878 1802

Hong Kong Monetary Authority
24 August 2007