April new mortgage loans drawn down falls 12% to HK30bn

The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to the Hang Seng Interbank Offered Rate slid to 89.8% from 91.7% in March.

New mortgage loans drawn down during April fell 12.1% to $26.9 billion, compared with March, the Monetary Authority said on Monday.

New loan approvals fell 36.7% to $27.6 billion. Approvals for primary market transactions and secondary market transactions fell $1.3 billion (22.1%) and $11 billion (38.8%), and those for refinancing transactions dropped by $3.7 billion or 39.2%. The number of new applications fell 36.2% to 14,782.

About 9% of new mortgage loans approved in April 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 the Hang Seng Interbank Offered Rate dipped to 89.8% from 91.7% in March.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans rose 1.1% to $770.2 billion.

The mortgage delinquency ratio increased slightly to 0.02% while the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.03%.