New mortgage loans drawn down in October dropped 9.5% to $21.1 billion, while new loans approved fell 13.1% to $29 billion, according to a Monetary Authority monthly survey.

The drop in approved new loans was mainly due to a reduction of 34.5% in primary market transactions and a drop of 12.7% in secondary market transactions. Approvals for refinancing loans also fell 0.6%.

The number of new applications also dropped from 19,519 in September to16,461 in October.

Around 42% of the new mortgage loans approved in October were priced at more than 2.5% below the best lending rate. The proportion of new mortgage loans priced with reference to rates other than the best lending rate edged up to 54.9% in October from 54.5% in September.