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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 October 2010.
New mortgage loans drawn down during October dropped by 26.1% to HK$25.1 billion compared with September.
New loans approved declined by 2.2% to HK$30.8 billion. Approvals for secondary market transactions contracted by HK$2.4 billion, or 11.4%, which more than offset an increase of HK$1.8 billion, or 78.8%, in approvals for primary market transactions. Approvals for refinancing transactions edged down slightly by HK$0.1 billion, or 1.3%. The number of new applications advanced by 16.0% to 20,363.
Around 8% of the new mortgage loans approved in October 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 91.6% from 90.7% in September.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans grew by 0.6% to HK$723.0 billion.
Both the mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.02% and 0.04% respectively in October.
Ends/Friday, November 26, 2010
Issued at HKT 16:39
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