Hungarian housing market gets perky at year-end
With 7,813 estimated residential property transactions December was the third strongest month of 2023. This is a rare phenomenon as the last month of the year is traditionally among the weakest.
There was an 11.2% decline compared to the unusually zesty november, but a nearly 21% growth over december 2022.
On an annual basis, Duna House estimates nearly 91,000 transactions, which is in the low end of the 90,000-110,000 forecast range and is expected to go up once the exact figures are available. For this year, 2024, the real estate brokerage expects 110,000 to 130,000 sales in the more active real estate market.
With around 91,000 transactions, this year would be the worst in terms of deals on the residential property market since 2013.
The strong November and December in both the housing and credit markets was due to changes in home purchase subsidies, with many families still taking advantage of the expiring CSOK subsidy at the end of last year. The first question for the year 2024 will be
how many people have waited for the new subsidies and how much momentum the year will have to start with, with the new CSOK Plus, the raised 'rural CSOK' and the baby loan helping families.
According to the latest data by the central bank (MNB), in the first 10 months of the year households signed HUF 464 billion of mortgage loans for housing. The financial intermediary Credipass, member of Duna House Group, estimates that this was followed by HUF 55 billion in November and HUF 67 billion in December. The HUF 586 billion annual housing loan disbursement calculated in this way would represent a 51% drop compared to 2022, but an active market of HUF 750-850 billion is expected next year.
Cover photo: Duna House
