Housing

In 2020, 28,208 new dwellings were built, 34% more than a year earlier. Based on issued dwelling construction permits and simple declarations, the number of homes to be built decreased by 36% to 22,556 compared to 2019.

It is particularly important to present, in addition to our regular and detailed publications, the current situation of the areas most affected by the pandemic with flash estimates using a limited information base. Our WEEKLY MONITOR presents the economic and social impacts of the pandemic through daily, weekly and monthly updated preliminary data as a collection of interactive diagrams.

In the first three quarters of 2020, the number of housing transactions decreased year-on-year by 18% in the new housing market and by 14% in the second-hand housing market, with a significant decline in quarter 2 and stabilization in quarter 3. Second-hand home sales did not decrease in rural CSOK beneficiary settlements. Compared to 2019, home prices rose by 2.4% in the second-hand housing market and by 6.2% in the new housing market, well below the pre-2020 trend.

The supply of dwellings for rent kept increasing in 2020: one of the key factors for growth was the growing supply in Budapest due to the coronavirus pandemic, which was partly decreased by the fall in county towns. In December 2020 the price fall that had been in progress at the market for five months continued: compared to the peak in January 2020, rents were 13% lower in Hungary and 16% lower in Budapest, roughly corresponding to the level measured two and a half years ago.

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.

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.