The number of foreigners reached a record on the Hungarian housing market last year, according to an analysis by ingtalan.com, which processes official KSH data, which also reveals which country’s people had the most interest in Hungarian residential properties in 2023.
“Foreign home buyers went against the trend. Last year, 138,000 apartments changed hands, which is 14 percent less than the year before. At the same time, foreigners bought 8,000 residential properties, which is almost 10 percent higher than the pre-pandemic peak value of 2018 and represents an annual increase of 38 percent. It is true that in 2021 the activity of people from abroad was restrained due to the epidemic” – said László Balogh, the leading economic expert of ingtalan.com.
He also added: The keen interest of foreigners in domestic real estate can be explained by several reasons. On the one hand, the euro strengthened against the forint, so foreigners were able to buy real estate cheaper, even for investment purposes. On the other hand, many buyers or tenants from abroad can be observed on the domestic real estate market, who are looking for a home in Hungary for a short or long term. A typical example of this is the situation of German retirees, who like to buy real estate around Lake Balaton.
According to the latest data from KSH, most residential properties in Hungary went to Germans in 2022, they bought more than 2,000 apartments, mainly near Lake Balaton in the counties of Zala and Somogy. Second place was taken by buyers from Slovakia with over 1,000 properties, who bought apartments in the area close to the border, mainly in the counties of Győr-Moson-Sopron and Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén. The vast majority of Slovakian buyers are pensioners, two-thirds of home buyers were over 65 in 2022. In third place are the Chinese focusing on Budapest, who bought 814 residential properties in 2022. More than 90 percent of Chinese buyers have been buying real estate in the capital for years.
According to this year’s data from ingtalan.com, the majority of people interested in residential properties for sale were also from Germany. In 2023, the number of inquiries from Germany exceeded 60,000 units. Nearly 10,000 inquiries were received from Austria and more than 5,000 from the United States. The number of inquiries from the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Romania and Slovakia also exceeded the number of 2-4 thousand units this year. László Balogh stated that some of the inquiries coming from abroad are mainly Hungarian prospective buyers from the United Kingdom who want to buy an apartment for the purpose of investing or creating a home.
24.hu
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