Hong Kong’s number of residential mortgages in negative equity - where the loan is bigger than the value of the home - nearly halved last quarter as the property market rebounds, according to the latest survey by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority.
The estimated number of 11,424 cases as of the end March was 46.4 percent lower than the figure for December. They accounted for just 1.88 percent of the total number of mortgage borrowers.
The aggregate value of these loans also fell by 47.8 percent to HK$55 billion, accounting for 2.84 percent of the total value of outstanding mortgage loans as of the end of March with the unsecured portion of the debts declining from HK$2.77 billion to HK$6.2 billion in December.
These cases were mainly related to bank staff housing loans or mortgages under mortgage insurance programs, which generally have a higher loan-to-value ratio, the HKMA said in a statement on Thursday.
The three-month delinquency ratio of mortgages in negative equity remained at a low level of 0.5 percent in March, though the figure was up by 0.19 percentage points from December, the de facto central bank said.
The overall mortgage delinquency ratio stood at 0.13 percent, according to a separate statement by the HKMA.
The regulator revealed that mortgage loans approved in March rose by 38.6 percent from February to HK$40.1 billion.
The number of mortgage applications in March also increased month-on-month by 26.9 percent to 10,311.
𝗗𝗼𝘄𝗻𝗹𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗮𝗿𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽 ↓
