New mortgage loans in June fell by 9.4%

The latest round of tightening of the underwriting standards of mortgage lending introduced last June 10 seen to have caused the falling figures.

New mortgage loans drawn down in June fell 9.4% to $24 billion compared with May.

New loans approved fell 16% to $26.6 billion, according to figures released by the Monetary Authority on Monday.

Approvals for primary market transactions and secondary market transactions fell 33.7% and 11%.

The number of new applications fell 30.3% to 11,913. The authority said the fall reflects the lower transaction volume following the latest round of tightening of the underwriting standards of mortgage lending introduced on June 10.

About 19% of the new mortgage loans approved in June were priced with reference to best lending rates, with the largest portion in the price range of 2% to less than 2.25%.

The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR decreased to 79.9% from 87.2% in May.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased by 1% to $788.2 billion. The mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.01% and 0.03% in June.