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The 23 authorised institutions participating in the Monetary Authority's monthly survey of residential mortgage lending reported a 20.3% fall in new loans drawn down during January, to $6 billion. New loans approved by the institutions fell 1.6% to $7.6 billion.
Within this total, approvals for primary-market transactions fell $473 million (-27.2%) and refinancings $130 million (-14.6%), which more than offset the $484 million (+9.6%) rise in approvals for secondary-market transactions. The number of new applications also slipped 0.3%.
The proportion of new approvals priced at more than 2.25% and up to 2.5% below the best lending rate rose slightly, to 39% from 38.3% in December last year. This continued to be the most commonly used interest-rate band for new approvals in January.
The outstanding value of mortgage loans fell 0.2%, to $531.9 billion.
The mortgage-delinquency ratio remained unchanged at 0.19%. With the rescheduled-loan ratio edging down to 0.34% from 0.35%, the combined ratio improved to 0.53% from 0.54% in December.
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