Hungarian real estate market on the move: latest insights

According to Duna House, the real estate market started the year on a brisk note and is expected to remain buoyant in the coming months.

The Hungarian real estate market performed well in October

Home sales in Hungary climbed 37 percent year-on-year to 10,738 in October, according to a monthly estimate by listed real estate broker Duna House.

According to Duna House’s totals, the turnaround could have started at the end of the summer, as the number of transactions in August already exceeded last year’s level, and in September, the number of transactions exceeded the number before last year.

They added that in October, the stock of mortgage loans for housing increased by some 117 billion forints, more than double last year.

The market’s recovery is also indicated by the fact that month-on-month growth is also visible.

For October, transactions increased by 10 percent compared to the previous month, while mortgage loans increased by 3 percent.

Experts at Duna House believe that supply and demand are strong, so the momentum in residential property sales could continue until the end of the year.

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The wave of price rises in Budapest could swell in the middle of next year

The capital city saw the most significant pick-up in house-buying in October.

This October brought a recovery in the housing market on both the supply and demand sides that have not been seen for years, which is not usually the case in the autumn, Ingatlan.com said on Monday. According to the specialist portal, these changes can be seen as a prelude to the recovery expected next year.

According to their aggregate, in the tenth month, more than 320,000 people made telephone inquiries about residential properties for sale, an increase of 31 percent year-on-year and 13 percent month-on-month.

In Budapest, interest in residential properties increased by a remarkable 45 percent year-on-year. Across neighbourhoods, demand in October was at least 60 percent higher than a year earlier in districts IV, VIII, X, XIII, and XXIII, suggesting that buyers in the capital who would buy for their own use were the most active.

The October, upturn in demand varies considerably by type of municipality. In the duchies and county seats, interest in apartments and houses for sale increased by 13 percent year-on-year, in the cities by 30 percent, but also in the municipalities by 19 percent. For municipalities, the 21 percent increase in demand was above average in rural municipalities with housing subsidies, while the 17 percent increase was below average in non-rural municipalities with housing subsidies. Csongrád-Csanád stands out in this respect. Residential properties in village voucher municipalities attracted 70 percent more interest, while their non-village voucher counterparts saw a 25 percent increase compared to October last year.

In terms of counties, Pest and Tolna saw the biggest upturn in demand, up 41 and 31 percent, respectively, compared to October last year, but most counties saw demand increase by 10-29 percent. Only the counties of Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Bács-Kiskun and Veszprém saw demand growth below 10 percent.

Meanwhile, the supply side of the housing market also expanded significantly. In October, more than 31.5 thousand residential properties were advertised for sale by owners and real estate agents, up 2.4 percent year-on-year. The extent of the increase in supply is better illustrated by the fact that owners placed more than 70 thousand residential property advertisements in the first ten months of the year. The last time a similarly strong sales performance was recorded was in 2020.

According to László Balogh, chief economist at ingatlan.com, the increase in sales is that owners expect a buoyant market, where they have a better chance of selling their property. Some sellers would like to enter the market as buyers, but most need to sell their homes to do so, which is why they are advertising. Both phenomena point towards a housing market recovery that could pick up in 2025, according to the expert at ingatlan.com. In fact, by next year, the housing market could be injected with EUR 1,000 billion, partly from inflation-linked government bonds, partly from voluntary pension savings, and partly from state subsidies for the population.

Zoltán Gadanecz, founder-owner of GDN Real Estate, expects the property market to become more expensive. In a statement on Monday, he pointed out that a pick-up in demand for credit precedes price rises. The data from the Central Statistical Office (KSH) shows a slight price increase. Still, Gadanecz says that this is not a rise but a normalisation: the real estate market is now returning to the level of the beginning of 2022 if we look at the turnover based on the KSH data.

On the other hand, GDN Real Estate Network’s lending partner, GV Hitelközpont, reports an increase in the number of home loan applicants. This shows that demand will start to pick up, and a pick-up in demand will move the market, so those waiting will act, says Gadanecz. The expert believes that the rebound will not stop at 2022 levels but that next year, from mid-2025 onwards, he calculates, a real upturn will be seen if current trends continue.

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