Approved mortgage loan applications dropped 12.3% to $18.6b

As total loan bids also declined.

According to Hong Kong's Monetary Authority, the number of mortgage loans approved fell 12.3% to $18.6 billion.

Meanwhile, the number of mortgage applications in February fell 24.5% month-on-month to 9,013.

In its residential mortgage survey results for the month, the authority said mortgage loans drawn down fell 23% to $12.2 billion.

Those for primary market transactions decreased 8.4% to $3 billion and secondary market transactions fell 11.8% to $12.9 billion. Mortgage loans for refinancing dropped 18.1% to $2.7 billion.

About 86.4% of the new mortgage loans approved were priced with reference to best lending rates, with the largest portion in the price range of 2% and 2.25%. The portion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to HIBOR increased from 7.4% in January to 11.4% in February.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans rose 0.4% month-on-month to $877 billion. The mortgage delinquency ratio and the rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.01%.