You can choose from this many apartments if you want to live in Budapest

Photo: www.facebookcom/RizsaviTamás

The students right now are in an exceptionally good position. With the pandemic situation receding, the recovery in the rental market will continue. The scene as a whole is now turning into the summer high season when many students are looking for housing to start school in September.

Although the national rental market summed May with an overall rise in prices – the national average rents increased by 1 per cent in one month – it still represents a slowdown compared to April. In Budapest specifically, the rate of increase in prices also slowed down, which is not a common occurrence.

Although rents for rented flats began to climb higher in the spring months, the national rent index remained lower for rentable flats. Rising prices mainly affect newly built apartments. The average price per square meter of second-hand flats is stagnant.

“Compared to the average rent of 150,000 in Budapest at the end of June last year, the average apartment price in the capital is now 140,000 forints, which is 9 per cent lower than a year ago.”
– said László Balogh, the leading economic expert of Ingatlan.com.

It is also clear that before the pandemic, the real estate market has never had such a vast supply in June. This is due to the online education of students and also to the fact that plenty of flats previously reserved mainly to tourists for short term use have entered the general market. Of the 16,000 Airbnb flats, 10,000 were offered for long-term rent, typically to students.

In the cheapest districts – X., XX., XXI. and XXIII. – an apartment could be found for a monthly rent of HUF 120,000. In the II. and in District V, on the other hand, the subleases were still issued at a relatively high price, for an average fee of HUF 180,000.

Among the university cities, the properties were offered for rent in Debrecen, Győr and Szeged for HUF 110,000 and Pécs for HUF 100,000.

According to the expert of ingatlan.com, the main question is whether the trend will be similar during this summer season or whether the rents will hit a limit at a lower level due to the larger supply compared to the annual comparison. According to him, the tenants are in a favourable position for the time being because they can still find an apartment for rent at a more affordable price than last year. Still, they have to review the entire offer thoroughly to make sure not to get scammed.