Foreigners’ Propensity to Buy Housing in Hungary at Five-Year High

  • 4 Dec 2023 7:04 AM
  • Hungary Today
Foreigners’ Propensity to Buy Housing in Hungary at Five-Year High
Thanks to the opportunities offered by the northern and eastern border regions and Transdanubia – commuting and old-age resettlement – the interest of foreign home buyers is already higher than before the epidemic, writes Magyar Nemzet.

In comparison, the capital city has taken a back seat, as only a fraction of the Chinese, Vietnamese, and Israeli buyers typically interested in the city have returned to the Hungarian market.

Although the shock of COVID has not yet passed without a trace, by 2022, foreigners largely returned to the Hungarian housing market, OTP Real Estate Point said in a statement. At the low point, in 2020, the first year of the epidemic, around 20-30% fewer homes were bought in Hungary than before.

Since then, the previous results have already been surpassed: while in a good sale period in the year of 2018, about 7,300 apartments were bought by foreigners, in 2022, this number was 8,000.

Four countries stand out in terms of turnover: Germany, Slovakia, China, and Romania. The interest of Chinese buyers in 2018 was at the same level as German buyers, but COVID brought a dramatic drop of around 50%.

Romanian buyers’ activity in 2018, was just below the levels already mentioned, but weakened the following year, stabilizing at a lower level of 25%.

Slovak buyers followed the opposite path: they increased the number of home purchases in Hungary by 45% in five years, making them now the second largest group of buyers behind Germans.

There is also a marked difference in where each group of buyers is looking for a new home in the country: nine out of ten Chinese, Vietnamese, and Israelis chose the capital.

The Dutch and Germans, on the other hand, are real fans of the Hungarian countryside, with an average of two out of three of their group choosing the area around Lake Balaton. Among the reasons, apart from the nostalgia factor, there is public safety, affordable property prices, and of course, the high purchasing value of their euro-denominated pensions.

In addition, many foreigners prefer to live in quieter domestic settlements: the proportion of people buying in the capital is thus below 20% for Romanians, Slovaks, Austrians, Belgians, and the Swiss.

Italians, Russians, British, and the French, however, are more likely to buy a home in Budapest than in the countryside.

The statistics also record how much foreign buyers paid for their new homes. The biggest cost increases between 2018 and 2022, were felt by Austrians and Ukrainians. The average purchasing price of the former increased from HUF 14.7 million to 32.2 million (EUR 38,645 to 84,651) over this period, while the average spend of the latter increased from HUF 19.3 million to 42.3 million (EUR 5,0,738 to 111,197).

The Swiss, who experienced a 107% rise in prices, were only slightly behind. By contrast, the French – who have meanwhile turned more strongly to the countryside – recorded an average price increase of just 19%.

The biggest news last year was a surge in the number of people coming from the UK, with nearly three times as many buying homes here as before the epidemic, when they were still EU members. This dynamic also meant that last year the UK was the largest home-occupying community in the capital, after the Chinese.

Related links

Russian Home Buyers Target Hungary

  • How does this content make you feel?

XpatLoop Media Partner

Hungary Today

Appearing online long after XpatLoop.com this ‘government related’ source states its aim as "to provide a complete, unbiased picture of Hungary”. It continues by acknowledging this “does not necessarily mean that our writers do not have their own opinions, sometimes reflected to a degree in the articles they publish” - and so it's really worth readers here keeping that in mind. Another stated aim is to become ‘the leading English-language news portal of Hungary’, a position held for well over 20 years by good old independent XpatLoop! Still our team has no issue with positively highlighting one or two useful articles published by Hungary Today - with their permission - for your interest.

Explore More Reports

  • Budapest Still Has the Lowest Household Energy Prices in EU

    Budapest Still Has the Lowest Household Energy Prices in EU

    • 8 Jan 2024 2:43 PM

    Maintaining its long-standing position, Budapest again came out on top in December in a comparison of EU capitals of where electricity and gas are cheapest for households. However, including capitals in non-EU countries, households in Kyiv, Ukraine had to pay less than Budapest for electricity and gas, Világgazdaság reports.