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Shocking: Hungary saw the EU’s number 1 housing cost increase
Experts believe households face financial problems if they have to pay 40% or more of their average income for housing. In some regions of Hungary, that expenditure is even higher than 50% because the number of newly-built houses and apartments is not enough in Hungary, and the Hungarian government did not feel the need to enter that market segment to reduce costs. Instead, the Orbán cabinet launched programmes that boosted real estate price increases. The result is the EU’s nr 1 housing price increase between 2015 and 2023.
Housing crisis in Hungary
The Hungarian government did not officially acknowledge that there was a housing crisis due to the high rental and property prices until the end of 2024. Instead of launching programmes to build affordable housing solutions and helping to decrease the prices, they poured incredible money into some segments of society before the 2022 elections and began programmes that provided money e.g. to families raising children, which resulted in an immense property cost rise.
According to a European Parliament report, all Europeans struggle with rising housing prices, but the Hungarian rate is outstanding within the community. Between 2015 and 2023, the average increase in property prices was 48% in the European Union. However, that rate was 173% in Hungary, the EU’s highest, while only 5% in Finland, the community’s lowest. Here are the relevant and shocking infographics from the document:
People leave their parental homes early in Hungary
Interestingly, the average age when people leave their parental home is not high in Hungary. Data shows that an average Hungarian youth leaves their parents at the age of 27.1, just like in Poland. However, that age is higher in Spain (30.4), Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria (30.0), Slovakia, Malta, and Greece. HERE you may read the full report.
The rise of property costs continue
According to Duna House, property prices continue to rise in Hungary. That is true for apartments and houses, apartment blocks, regardless of whether they were built from brick or concrete. At a 2024 November conference, experts agreed that tremendous money could be transferred to the housing sector this year because one of the most popular Hungarian government security expired, and 20% of those assets could be spent on buying property. That means people are looking for investment opportunities with more than HUF 1,300 billion (EUR 3.2 billion) in their pockets.
Read also:
- Rental market paradox: Steep prices meet falling demand in Budapest
- From Buda to Debrecen: Hungarian property market sees rapid surge in 2025
How is it that property prices rise the most in a country with a declining population? The problem is corruption which inceases costs in the building industry and everywhere else.
That’s a cute little hit piece against the government but, typically, it doesn’t even obliquely make mention of the actual problem: continued urbanization. There is plenty of real estate to buy or rent in smaller towns and villages, and it’s dirt cheap. Instead of whining about government not meddling in the housing market, which it shouldn’t, why not ask how to encourage people to migrate FROM the big cities?
Oh, and while at it, explain what the situation would be if Hungary had have taken in tens of thousands illegal alien invaders the EUrogarbarge was and is demanding we do and is fining us hundreds of millions of dollars (sorry, “euros”) for not doing!
@MSteiner, people did during COVID time, but they could not afford the expenses, high cost of heating. easy to ask people to move to smaller town, but then Government also cuts the public transportation…. I agree with you but it shall be plan better having an holistic view
Steiner. I have lived in a rural location and moved to the big city so that my children would have opportunity. We lived on a lake and they became expert swimmers. I remember my cousin living in the puszta saying that there is nothing there except the kocsma where you can drink, What jobs do you have in the village? All these people move to the city and you think they are somehow making a mistake and you somehow know better? What kind of health care or schools are you going to get in the middle of nowhere? People have been moving to cities for thousands of years and you haven’t figured out why?
People are moving to the cities because rural areas have been neglected for too long. These areas are often in a dire state, lacking basic infrastructure and services, jobs that pay above minimum wage, or even jobs at all. There’s a reason why property in far flung villages are often dirt cheap, it’s because they’re nigh on unsellable due to depopulation. If you want to repopulate these settlements you need to give people a reason to move there (or move back). They need jobs, the ability to make a decent income, basic services and a civic environment that’s a step above the level of the Balkans in the 1990s.
I would argue the government HAS been meddling in the market endowing young people with large bounties to have children, halting the construction of social housing, running ‘golden visa’ schemes encouraging foreign investors, maintaining a weak currency policy that encourages foreign buyers to hoover up property they perceive to be cheap and allowing the widespread proliferation of short lettings to tourists. All this has had a monumental effect on both market prices as well as the number of available units compared to demand and it all hails from active steps taken by the government. They’ve also singularly failed to institute any form of rent caps or tax provisions that serve to discourage foreign buyers from pricing locals out of the market, again, the decision not to act is one taken by government. Many people (myself included) will leave because life is no longer affordable here relative to incomes. As if Hungary didn’t already have an emigration problem to contend with.
Steiner Michael – content of your commentary contribution – INFERIOR.
Orban and his Fidesz Government through factual knowledge, there Meddling, there manipulation, influence – the ability as a “Heinous” and “Toxic in Culture” Government as they are, the picture that is the Real Estate and Property Market in Hungary, is PREDOMINANTLY of there DOING – Creation.
“Fingers in the Pie” – palms being GREASED – all coming back to Minglling and MANIPULATION with NO real, nor FACTUAL basic’s nothing in the CORE of Economic or Financial FUNDAMENTALS – principles, but solely through a Government, that has used its POWER, for it’s own Ministerial individual purpose’s – in the fatting, the lining of there own Personal Pockets.
Steiner Michael – this platform prior on numerous other occasions has been used, to highlight that sooner than later, the “softening” of the Real Estate and Property Markets in Budapest, Hungary that factually is HAPPENING, the CRASH – will happen sooner than later.
There will be CARNAGE plus.
Steiner Michael – could be an INVESTMENT opportunity for you and the Hungarian born wife, your claim of living in 42 locations, various countrys around the Globe, the growing creation of Hamlets, that through the SLAUGHTERING of Hungary by the Orban led Fidesz Government, the political party of your fully paid up membership, an investment opportunity to purchase and move to live in a NEWLY by growing rapidly RURAL Hamlet environment.
THINK seriously about this recommendation.
It could be YOUR comfort zone.