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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 December decreased by 3.4% to HK$7.5 billion.
New loans approved by the AIs fell further by 12.0% to HK$7.7 billion. The decline was across-the-board in both value and number terms. In value terms, new approvals for refinancing loans recorded the largest decrease (-25.6%), followed by primary market transactions (-14.0%) and secondary market transactions (-8.4%). The number of new applications also fell, by 9.5%.
The proportion of new loan approvals priced at more than 2.25% and up to 2.5% below the best lending rate decreased slightly to 38.3% from 39.0% in November, and continued to be the most commonly used interest rate band for new approvals in December.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans decreased by 0.4% to HK$533.1 billion.
The mortgage delinquency ratio edged up to 0.19% from 0.18% a month earlier. With the rescheduled loan ratio remaining unchanged at 0.35%, the combined ratio increased to 0.54% from 0.53% in November, the first rise since June 2003.
For further enquiries, please contact:
Jasmin Fung, Manager (Press), at 2878 8246 or
Hing-Fung Wong, Resource Co-ordinator, at 2878 1802
Ends/Wednesday, January 25, 2006
Issued at HKT 16:31
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