The government can allocate EUR 550m of European Union funding for its “Wekerle Home Construction Programme”, a new home-building scheme, but with bank and market co-financing it could involve up to EUR 2bn (HUF 730 billion) of sources, Transportation and Investment Minister Dávid Vitézy said in a post on social media on Sunday.
New home-building programme to ease housing crisis
Vitézy said that by developing the housing programme, the state will appear as an active, encouraging, supportive and development focused actor in housing policy, and will simultaneously enforce social, quality and urban development aspects, MTI wrote.
He said the housing crisis is now so deep that its solution is unimaginable without active state intervention. He listed skyrocketing rents, owning your own apartment being a distant dream with an average salary, lack of dormitory spaces, not enough new apartments being built, and the condition of the existing housing stock deteriorating due to the lack of renovations as the symptoms of the crisis.
Insufficient number of dormitory places, sky-high prices
The minster noted that over the past 15 years, house prices have grown faster than incomes. Real house prices have increased by 120pc, while real wages have increased by 60pc. The price of an average Hungarian house in 2015 was equivalent to 5.9 years of average net earnings, and by 2025 this had increased to 7.1 years.
Rent prices have increased by 30pc in real terms, while there are only 49,000 dormitory spaces for 320,000 students, he added.
Vitézy’s ministry recovers 100 billion forints of state assets
Some 100 billion forints (EUR 275m) of assets were returned to the state at the end of August with the dissolvement of the four public-interest asset management foundations (KEKVA) subordinate to the Ministry of Transport and Investment, minister David Vitezy said in a post on social media on Sunday.
The minister noted that parliament passed a law recently on ending the KEKVA system, which will dissolve these foundations by August 31, returning their assets, acquired from public sources, to the state.
Vitezy said foundation assets will be transferred to the ministries taking over the tasks of the respective foundations. His ministry oversees the Millenary Scientific Cultural Foundation, the Central European Built Heritage Preservation Foundation, the Hauszmann Foundation and the Central European Educational Foundation.
PM Magyar vows to tighten asset recovery rules and refuses to bow to political pressure
Fidesz politicians would have managed state assets in an opaque manner
He said there will be no deterioration in the quality of any public task or service in the new system, and the use of a significant amount of state assets will once again become transparent and controllable.
KEKVAs were established by the previous ruling Fidesz party with the aim of “managing state funds in a completely opaque and uncontrollable manner”, with the boards of trustees consisting almost exclusively of Fidesz politicians, he added.
Vitezy said that the European Commission has long criticised the KEKVA system, the reform of which was one of the conditions for securing EU funds. The previous government was unwilling to do this, but the Tisza government ended the KEKVA system in just over three months, he added.
Tisza government official resigns after just two months; opposition Fidesz reacts immediately
