Mortgage loan applications drop 29.9% to 7,449

Even approved loans crashed 37.1%.

According to the Monetary Authority, the number of mortgage applications in December fell 29.9% month-on-month to 7,449.

In its residential mortgage survey results for December, the authority said mortgage loans drawn down decreased 10.8% to $18.9 billion.

Mortgage loans approved in December fell 37.1% month-on-month to $15.2 billion.

Those for primary market transactions decreased 44.7% to $3.1 billion and secondary market transactions fell 38.4% to $9.5 billion. Mortgage loans for refinancing dropped 17.4% to $2.6 billion.

About 90.4% 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 5.2% in November to 7.7% in December.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans rose 1.3% month-on-month to $868.3 billion. The mortgage delinquency ratio increased slightly from 0.01% in November to 0.02% in December. The rescheduled loan ratio remained unchanged at 0.01%.