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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 Hong Kong Monetary Authority (HKMA)'s monthly survey of residential mortgage lending, new mortgage loans drawn down during October declined by 9.5% to HK$21.1 billion compared with September.
New loans approved fell by 13.1% to HK$29 billion. The decline was distributed across all types of property transaction. Approvals for primary market transactions declined by HK$1.3 billion or 34.5%, approvals for secondary market transactions declined by HK$3 billion or 12.7%, and approvals for refinancing loans declined by HK$0.04 billion or 0.6%. The number of new applications declined to 16,461 compared with 19,519 in September.
Around 42% of the new mortgage loans approved in October were priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate (mostly HIBOR) edged up to 54.9% in October from 54.5% in September.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 0.9% to HK$631.6 billion.
Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio fell slightly to 0.04% and 0.10% respectively in October.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Hing-fung Wong, Manager (Communications), at 2878 1802 or
Natalie Wu, Officer (Communications), at 2878 8246
Ends/Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Issued at HKT 17:10
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