Orbán declares ‘now or never’ for young homebuyers: is a loan really the only way?

Demand for the Home Start programme, a new government-subsidised loan programme for young home-buyers, exceeds all expectations, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on Thursday, adding: “Young people have understood that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to purchase their own home.”

“Now or never,” Orbán said in a post on Facebook. “Banks are competing with each other, rents are down, the haters are silent. We have promised to benefit even those who voted against us. We have kept our word,” he said.

Taxes should be cut rather than raised, he said. “In a world-wide first,” mothers of three will receive a life-long personal income tax exemption from October. “This is the future, we can do even this,” he added.

He said tax hikes by the opposition Tisza party “should be fought against at all cost — an entire country revolted against that”. Tisza’s programme could be summed up as: “We can’t say everything because we’d fail,” the prime minsister said.

Tisza was “full of confusion and gibberish: three-bracket progressive personal income tax, energy price hikes, then they walk back from even a VAT cut. Total inability to govern…” he said. “Meanwhile, the government is implementing, step by step, the largest family-friendly tax cut in Hungarian history, and its largest home purchase programme,” he said.

Orbán said Tisza was “preparing full-tilt for their jamboree in Kotcse”, referring to a planned demonstration in a village hosting a traditional meeting of the ruling Fidesz party over the weekend. “No matter the provocation, we will hold our annual, peaceful, civic meeting,” he said, adding that the event will be streamed live.