New mortgage loans drawn down in October fell 2.6% to $11.3 billion and new loans approved dropped 5.9% to $13.7 billion, according to a Monetary Authority monthly survey.

The fall in approved new loans was mainly due to drops of $600 million, or 5.9%, in approvals for secondary market transactions, and of $300 million, or 9.4%, in approvals for refinancing loans.

Approvals for primary market transactions remained little changed at $1.8 billion. New applications also fell 10.3%.

The proportion of new loans approved at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate dropped to 51.7% from 83.1% in September. The outstanding value of mortgage loans grew by 0.5% to $600 billion.

The mortgage delinquency ratio remained at 0.05% while the rescheduled loan ratio fell to 0.13%. The combined ratio fell to a record low of 0.18%, from 0.19% in September.