About $12.2 billion in new mortgage loans were drawn down in August, a fall of 29.6% on July, the Monetary Authority says.

New loans approved fell 27% to $13.5 billion. Approvals for primary market transactions fell by $500 million or 37.5%, secondary market transactions dropped $3.6 billion or 26.8%, and refinancing loans fell $800 million or 23.6%.

The number of new applications dropped 25.9%.

The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate rose to 82.8% from 82.3% in July.

The outstanding value of mortgage loans rose 0.2% to $595.5 billion.

The mortgage delinquency ratio remained unchanged at 0.05% while the rescheduled loan ratio declined to 0.14%. The combined ratio dropped to a record low of 0.19% from 0.20% in July.