Housing

The number of housing transactions continued to decline in the first two quarters of 2020. Preliminary data show a stronger decline in the second quarter than in the first quarter, partly due to the coronavirus epidemic. Both new and used home sales fell. In the first quarter, house prices still increased in both sub-markets compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, but preliminary data for the second quarter show declining second-hand house prices.

Upon a low point in April and a fluctuation in early summer, rents fell again in September. Despite this decrease, the rent level in September slightly exceeded the one in April. Budapest is characterised by different processes: while the rents paid in the inner districts of Pest rose to an extent over 4% compared to the figures in April, the outer districts of Pest show a similar decrease.

More detailed housing statistics than before have become available from our summary table collection (STADAT). We have expanded our tables on housing with a number of national and regional data and indicators, as the Yearbook of Housing Statistics has not been published this year. In addition to the previously reported data, the 63 tables also contain information on, for example, the specific cost of housing construction, ongoing housing constructions, or the average construction time of residential buildings.

Housing loans totalled HUF 3.8 thousand billion on 30 June 2020, 4.3% more than at the end of 2019, and accounted for 8.1% of GDP. Authorizations and disbursements were both down by 16% in number in the first half of 2020 compared to the same period of the previous year. Home loans continued to be dominated by loans for purchasing second-hand homes. CSOK grants disbursed were more than one and a half times higher in volume than a year earlier.

In the first three quarters of 2020, 12,876 new dwellings were built, 25% more than a year earlier. Based on issued dwelling construction permits and simple declarations, the number of homes to be built decreased by 37% to 17,278 compared to the same period of 2019.

Data related on settlements and districts of Budapest in the Dissemination database are updated twice this year, as such part of the 2019 serial settlement and district data, among others about housing stock, home building, dwelling cessation are available from 31 July, four months earlier than it was customary before.

On 1 January 2020, the Hungarian housing stock consisted of almost 4 million 475 thousand dwellings, increasing by 19 thousand in 2019 as the balance of dwellings built and terminated. In connection with the housing construction boom, the Hungarian housing stock has been growing at an increasing rate since 2016, with an overall increase of 1.9% since the 2011 census. As a result of housing growth and population decline, an average of 218 people lived in one hundred dwellings at the beginning of the year, 1 person fewer than a year earlier.

The yearbook is a data compilation on construction permits and simple declarations, dwelling constructions and cessations, housing stock, housing market and the management of municipalities. Data on average construction costs and the main figures of housing loans as well as data of dwellings purchased by the National Asset Management Company are also available here.