Mortgage loans application and approvals fall

Mortgage loans drawn down during July dropped by 20% compared with June, to $16.1 billion, said the Monetary Authority.

On the other hand, mortgage loans approved decreased by 8.1% to $19.5 billion. Mortgage loans for refinancing decreased by 13.8% to $2.5 billion. The number of applications, however, increased by 4% month-on-month to 10,640.

Mortgage loans financing primary market transactions rose by 2.1% to $4.3 billion, while those financing secondary market transactions decreased by 9.9% to $12.7 billion.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased month-on-month by 0.6% to $828.2 billion at end-July.

About 93.4% of mortgage loans were priced with reference to best lending rates. The majority of mortgage loans were priced within the range of 2% and 2.25%. About 4.5% of mortgage loans were priced with reference to HIBOR.