New mortgage loans in September up 2.4%

The average loan-to-value ratio of new loans approved down to 58.6% from 61.4%.

New mortgage loans drawn down in September rose to $33.9 billion, up 2.4% on August.

The Monetary Authority's residential mortgage survey for September found new loans approved fell 21.6% to $31.6 billion. Approvals for primary market transactions fell by $1.6 billion, or 41.9%, while those for secondary market transactions fell by $7.4 billion, or 25.9%. Those for refinancing transactions increased by $300 million, or 4.3%.

The average approved loan size fell 3.4% to $2.28 million, and the average contractual life of the new loans approved also fell to 273 months from 275 months in August. The average loan-to-value ratio of new loans approved declined to 58.6% from 61.4%. The number of new applications declined by 26.2% to 17,459, according to a Monetary Authority report.

Around 9% of the new mortgage loans approved in September were priced with reference to best lending rates.

The majority of these were in the price range of 2% to less than 2.25%. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to the Hong Kong Interbank Offer Rate, or HIBOR, increased to 90.5% from 89.5% in August.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans grew 1.7% to $718.7 billion.

The mortgage delinquency ratio stood at a low of 0.02% while the rescheduled loan ratio was at a low of 0.04%.
The estimated number of residential mortgage loans in negative equity fell to 152 cases at the end of September from 310 cases at the end of June. The aggregate value of these loans fell to $200 million at the end of September, compared with $500 million at the end of June.

The unsecured portion of these loans remained at $100 million. The three-month delinquency ratio of the residential mortgage loans in negative equity increased to 0.93% from 0% at the end of June.