Hungarian House Prices Fell 1.4% in the Second Quarter While the Annual Rate Held at 10.1%
Hungarian house prices fell 1.4% in the second quarter of 2026 after five consecutive quarterly rises, even as the annual rate held at 10.1%.
The Hungarian Central Statistical Office updated its quarterly housing price index on 1 October, and the preliminary reading for the second quarter of 2026 shows prices falling 1.4% against the first quarter. On a basis where the previous quarter equals 100, the combined index printed 98.6. The five quarters before it printed 109.5, 102.2, 106.6, 103.3 and 101.5, every one of them above 100. Measured against the same quarter of 2025 the index still reads 110.1, an annual gain of 10.1%.
On the level basis, where the 2025 average equals 100, the combined index stands at 106.3, down from 107.8 in the first quarter. The quarterly series behind it runs 83.0 and 86.3 for the third and fourth quarters of 2024, then 94.4, 96.5, 102.9 and 106.2 through 2025, then 107.8 and 106.3 in 2026.
The new-build fall is mostly a change of mix
The Hungarian table does something most national price indices do not: it splits each annual change into a composition effect and a pure price change, then reports the total separately. For new dwellings in the second quarter, the annual composition effect reads 94.3 and the pure price change reads 99.3, producing a total of 93.7, a drop of 6.3% over the year.
Read carefully, that is not a 6.3% fall in what a given new home costs. The pure price component moved barely at all. Almost the whole decline comes from the composition effect, which means the new homes changing hands this quarter were cheaper ones than those sold a year earlier. Anyone treating the new-build headline as a price correction is reading a shift in the mix of completed projects.
Used homes show the opposite pattern
For existing dwellings the annual composition effect reads 102.3, the pure price change 111.5 and the total 114.1, a gain of 14.1%. Here the mix adds to the increase rather than explaining it away, and the underlying price movement is doing the work.
The quarterly figures sharpen the point. In the second quarter the used-dwelling composition effect reads 101.9, the pure price change 98.5 and the total 100.3. On a pure price basis, existing Hungarian homes were cheaper at the end of June than at the end of March, and the only reason the total came out roughly flat is that the mix of properties sold shifted upmarket.
How this sits against our own Hungary data
Glopra records a national average asking price of 4,049.14 US dollars per square metre for Hungary, drawn from a national listings aggregator for week 36 of 2026, and 5,042.62 dollars for Budapest. Our annual change field carries 12.3%, taken from the National Bank of Hungary index for the same quarter, against the statistical office's 10.1%. Both are credible and the gap is methodological: the central bank publishes a hedonic index that adjusts for property characteristics, while the statistical office reports a combined index that keeps the composition effect visible as a separate column. The two now point the same way on direction, which is the part that matters.
Our Hungary row carries a bubble risk score of 69, in the elevated band, and 64 for Budapest. The effective tax on rental income is 13.5% of the gross rent, which is 15% personal income tax applied after the standard 10% expense allowance, with no social contribution and no bracket, so the rate is identical at every rent level and identical for non-residents; itemised expense accounting can bring the real burden down to 8 to 10%. Round-trip transaction costs run to 8%. Ownership is freehold, and buyers from outside the European Union need a permit. The data for the second quarter are flagged preliminary, and the index was rebased this year from 2015 to 2025, so older comparisons need care.
Sources: Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), STADAT table 18.2.1.8, Lakaspiaci arindex negyedevenkent, last updated 1 October 2026, reference quarter 2026 Q2 https://www.ksh.hu/stadat_files/lak/hu/lak0036.html