Are foreigners buying all the Hungarian real estate?

In the past year, there have been nearly 7300 purchases registered in Hungary, where foreign citizens were the buyers. While the number of foreign buyers is not considerable on the Hungarian real estate market as a whole, it is about 2.3%, but in Budapest, it is 12%, and in the inner districts of Pest, it even reaches 26%. This is in connection with the prices of the homes, which are higher than the average prices elsewhere in the country.

The newest KSH data have been released, which revealed not only that since 2015, the prices of used apartments have gone up by about 60%, but also what nationalities were the most active home-buyers in 2018, and in which price category foreigners were interested the most, wrote portfolio.hu.

The data reveals, that the number of foreign buyers in 2018 was similar to the previous year. They mainly made purchases in West- and South-Transdanubia, making up about 12-15% there. The foreign buyers in Budapest primarily focused in the inner districts of Budapest, and every fourth out of all foreign buyers found a place here. If we look at Budapest as a whole, 41.6% out of almost 7300 purchases by foreigners were made there.

The Chinese are very experienced on the Hungarian real estate market, read more HERE.

Over 90% of Vietnamese, Chinese, and Israeli people living in Hungary became owners of homes in Budapest. About 95% of Vietnamese people, but especially Chinese and Israeli people seem to prefer the Hungarian capital to other cities. The most active foreigners on the Hungarian real estate market were the Chinese, as they bought over 1,000 homes over the last year.

While foreigners spent an average of €41,207 on homes outside Budapest, this price exceeded €122,105 in Budapest. Similarly to 2017, most buyers were from Germany, China, and Romania in 2018 as well, if we look at all the transactions in the whole country. The Vietnamese, Chinese, and French who bought real estate in Budapest spent an average of €131,230-137,333, but the amounts they paid are determined by the regions in which the purchases were made.

Elderly Western Europeans mainly interested in real estate in the country spent less than €61,035 on average. The expenses of buyers from the neighbouring countries were about the same; they also mainly made purchases outside of Budapest. Based on their age, they probably appeared on the Hungarian real estate market because of working opportunities here.

Chinese and Slovakian buyers are the youngest. The average age of foreign purchasers is 47 years, based on all the transactions. People coming from Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Germany are between 54-57 on average, while people from Slovakia and China are the youngest, aged 41.

Our northern neighbours keep buying real estate in the regions near the border, some of which are newly-built homes. 12 % of buyers from other EU member states, while almost 10% of Slovak customers bought newly-built apartments.

Source: https://portfolio.hu/