*****************************************************
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 February increased by 25.4% to HK$7.5 billion, the first increase in nine months.
New loans approved by the AIs increased by 2.4% to HK$7.7 billion. The growth was due to increases of HK$137 million (+2.5%) in approvals for secondary market transactions and of HK$151 million (+19.9%) in approvals for refinancing, which more than offset the HK$110 million (-8.7%) decrease in approvals for primary market transactions. The number of new applications also increased, by 13.7%.
The proportion of new loan approvals priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate increased markedly to 30.2% from 8.1% in January to become the most commonly used interest rate band for new approvals in February.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans fell by 0.1% to HK$531.1 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio edged up to 0.20% from 0.19% a month earlier. With the rescheduled loan ratio remaining unchanged at 0.34%, the combined ratio increased to 0.54% from 0.53% in January.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Jasmin Fung, Manager (Press), at 2878 8246 or
Hing-Fung Wong, Resource Co-ordinator, at 2878 1802
Ends/Friday, March 24, 2006
Issued at HKT 16:31
NNNN