New mortgage loans drawn down in July fell 13.5% on the previous month to $14.2 billion, the Monetary Authority says. The mortgage delinquency, rescheduled loan and combined ratios reached record lows.

New loans approved rose 0.7% to $17.4 billion, due to a $120 million or 3.6% growth in approvals for primary-market transactions and an $81 million or 2.7% rise in approvals for refinancing loans, which more than offset the $87 million or 0.8% dip in approvals for secondary-market transactions. The number of new applications grew 5%.

The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate rose to 90.9% from 90.3% in June, while the proportion of new approvals priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate or fixed rates fell to 5.2% from 6.2%.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans rose 0.5% to $538.6 billion. The mortgage-delinquency ratio fell to 0.14%. With the rescheduled-loan ratio falling to 0.23% in July, the combined ratio improved to 0.38%. All three ratios reached record lows in July.