The Hong Kong Monetary Authority's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending shows new loans drawn down in May dropped 9.4% to $10.4 billion, while refinancing loans grew 24.3%.

New approvals also declined 6.3% in value terms to $11.6 billion, and 6.4% in number terms to 7,642 cases, which was attributable to the 31.3% reduction in new approvals for primary market transactions, and 12% drop for secondary market transactions.

The secondary market accounted for more than 50% of new approvals, while refinancing loans accounted for about 30%. The number of new applications rose 3.1%.

Outstanding mortgage loans dip to $524.9b

The proportion of new approvals priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate rose to 65.7% from 62.9% in April. That for fixed-rate mortgages increased to 10.7% from 10% in April.

The outstanding amount of mortgage loans edged down by 0.2%, to $524.9 billion.