Approved mortgage loans drop

Approved mortgage loans in April fell 9.7% to $25.4 billion from March.

A residential mortgage survey for April conducted by the Monetary Authority also revealed that mortgage loans drawn down during the month increased 55.4% to $17.4 billion.

New loans for primary market transactions fell 27.5% to $3 billion and those financing secondary market transactions dropped 8.3% to $20 billion. Approvals for refinancing rose 11.3% to $2.4 billion. The number of applications in April fell 23.2% to 13,375.

New mortgage loans priced with reference to best lending rates decreased from 91.9% in March to 91.4% in April, with the majority priced between 2% and 2.25%. New mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR decreased from 5.5% in March to 4.9% in April.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans increased 0.8% to $809.6 billion. The mortgage delinquency ratio remained unchanged at 0.01% while the rescheduled loan ratio decreased to 0.01%, which has been the lowest level since September 2001.