Nobody thought this could happen in Hungary’s property market

The last few years were about the skyrocketing prices in the Hungarian real estate market. It seems that trend not only ended but even reversed these days. Based on the latest data provided by OTP Bank, many owners wait instead of purchasing their properties quickly. But a minority was forced to lower their prices, which had not happened for years before. As a result, provided you have money to invest and you are able to modernise properties, Hungary is becoming your place to generate solid profit.

Most of the property owners wait

According to index.hu, the property search system of the OTP Bank, Hungary’s biggest bank, has 9 thousand offers in Budapest and Pest county. Owners modified the price of those advertisements 29 thousand times, which means many people changed their minds on multiple occasions. 90 percent of those adjustments included a decrease in the cost.

According to the statistics of otpotthon.hu, owners decreased their prices by an average of 6 percent. However, those increasing prices did so by 9 percent. But most owners wait. In the case of 78.2 percent of the properties, there were no modifications during that time. The price decreased only in the case of 18.7 percent of them.

The results are interesting if we compare the trends in Budapest and Pest county. The numbers show that, in Budapest, the prices did not go down. Meanwhile, in Pest county, the decrease reached 4.7 percent.

• Read also: Drastic change in Hungary’s property market

Sustainability is becoming more and more important

The importance of sustainability became number 1 last year because of the energy crisis that followed the end of the COVID pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war. The number of searches concerning energy-sustainable properties rose threefold on OTP’s real estate website.

Owners do not tend to lower prices in the case of newly built properties, and apartments not yet built. That is probably because these are designed to have cost-effective energy consumption. Meanwhile, apartment sellers in blocks of flats are forced to decrease their prices. Thus, if you look for investment, you should search for apartments in blocks of flats having good public transport connections in Budapest and the rural municipalities. Provided they can be modernised, your profit is guaranteed.

The trend is the same in other parts of the country. Outside Budapest and Pest county, 13 percent of the owners decided to decrease their prices, while only 3 percent did the other way around. 84 percent did not modify the costs. The change did not concern average prices.

However, the latest numbers on the industry published by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office, suggest that the price increase trend in Hungary’s real estate market ended. Its rate was only one percent between Q2 and Q3 in 2022.

Read alsoHungary’s cheapest villages: EUR 7500 for a family house

Source: index.hu