“The government’s goal remains unchanged: to assist families in home creation and help young people acquire their own home, and the latest figures published today indicate that we are on the right track and it is worth continuing the subsidies”, Minister of Finance Mihály Varga declared in assessment of the latest figures published by the Central Statistical Office.

“Over 21 thousand homes were built in Hungary last year, twenty percent more than in 2018”, the Minister highlighted. “Also thanks to the government’s measures, the number of newly constructed homes has increased continuously for the sixth year running, and while 7,600 new homes were constructed during the whole of the year in 2015, this number increased to 17,800 in 2018 and to over 21 thousand in 2019”, Mr. Varga told reporters.

“The number of new homes constructed in Budapest increased significantly by 51 percent, but more people have moved into new homes throughout the whole country, and small municipalities have seen a remarkable 21 percent increase in new homes”, he highlighted. “In addition to continuously increasing real earnings and the low interest environment, increasing property market demand is also being fuelled by the Family Home Creation Scheme, and until the end of December 2019 banks received applications from over 123 thousand families at a total value of 366 billion forints (EUR 1.09 billion), a sum that exceeds 0.8% of Hungary’s annual GDP”, Mr. Varga stated.

“The total value of the home creation subsidy issued to over 100 thousand families since January 2016 is 218 billion forints (EUR 943 million)”, he added. “In addition, within the framework of the Village Family Home Creation Scheme, which provides funding to families wishing to purchase or renovate an apartment or house in the beneficiary small settlement, a further 22 billion forints (EUR 65.2 million) in total contracts have been concluded with almost 4 thousand families since the scheme was introduced in July 2019”, the Minister underlined, pointing out that in the short term, the figures project favourable property market trends.

Last year, the total value of new mortgages increased to 910 billion forints (EUR 2.7 billion), a year-on-year increase of 7 percent. According to a survey by the Economic Research Institute (GKI), the last time domestic property construction and purchasing willingness was as high as in 2019 was prior to the 2008 global financial crisis.

(Ministry of Finance)