Loan approvals rise sharply in February

The Monetary Authority has announced upbeat news for the property sector.

It said new loans approved during February rose 44.1% to $14.4 billion while new mortgage loans drawn down that month increased 25.8% to $7.6 billion compared to January.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans hovered at around $799.8 billion. The mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio was unchanged at 0.01% and 0.02%.

Approvals for primary market transactions grew 9.1% to $3.3 billion and approvals for secondary market transactions increased 68.9% to $9.6 billion. Approvals for refinancing rose 15.7% to $1.5 billion. The number of new applications rose 82.5% to 10,485.

New mortgage loans priced with reference to best lending rates fell from 93.6% in January to 91.3% in February, with the largest portion priced within the range of 2.25% to 2.5%. New mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR rose to 3.4%.