New mortgages rise above NT$100 billion again

• By Chen Cheng-hui / staff reporter

The country’s top five state-owned banks extended NT$111.046 billion (US$3.46 billion) in new mortgages last month, NT$14.305 billion more than the previous month and back above NT$100 billion, the central bank data released yesterday.

The figure had fallen below NT$100 billion in August for the first time in four months as the central bank continued its efforts to cool the domestic housing market and curb property speculation and accumulation of properties.

The 14.79 percent monthly increase in new mortgages from the Bank of Taiwan (臺灣銀行), the Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行), the Cooperative Bank of Taiwan (不同金庫銀行), the Hua Nan Commercial Bank (華南銬行) and the First Commercial Bank一銀行) last month stemmed from a higher number of whole lot mortgage cases compared to the previous month, the central bank said.

Photo: Hsu Yi-ping, Taipei Times

In addition, several local lenders speeding up processing of previously backlogged first-time buyers and owner-occupied units also boosted mortgage numbers, he said.

However, further observations would be needed to determine whether last month’s surge was a short-term phenomenon, as several recently released data showed that the housing market has cooled slightly compared to the hot market of the first half of the year, he added.

Despite the growth in new mortgages, the average mortgage rate charged by the five state banks fell 0.004 basis points from 2.194 percent in August to 2.19 percent last month, mainly due to the larger share of first purchases and owner occupied cases. , which tend to have more favorable rates from lenders, the central bank said.

It also reflects a falling share of government preferential lending for first home buyers in total new mortgages, which fell to 34.37 per cent last month, the lowest since September last year. the central bank said.

Because the government’s prime loan program carries relatively lower interest rates, a smaller share of those loans affected the average mortgage rate less than expected, he said.

In the first nine months of this year, the five state-owned banks extended NT$880.771 billion of new mortgages, a record for the period and up 76.4 percent from NT$499.296 billion a year earlier, the data showed .