Hungarian Home Sales Fell to 8,077 in August, 29% Below Last Year
Duna House puts August home sales in Hungary at 8,077, down 13.1% on July and 29% on a year earlier, the second-weakest month of 2026 so far.
Hungary closed the summer with an estimated 8,077 residential transactions in August 2026 — 13.1% fewer than in July, and 29% below the 11,369 deals recorded in August 2025. The figures come from Duna House's monthly estimate, published on 1 September, and they make August the second-weakest month of the year so far. Agents had spent the summer waiting for a turning point; it did not arrive.
The base effect does most of the damage
The 29% year-on-year gap is real, but it flatters the pessimistic reading. August 2025 was an unusually crowded month: the government unveiled the Otthon Start subsidised-loan scheme in early September 2025, and buyers who anticipated the announcement — investors above all — pulled purchases forward into the preceding weeks. Measured against that inflated base, almost any August would look thin. The month-on-month number is the cleaner signal, and at −13.1% it describes a market that cooled through the summer rather than one that broke.
Borrowing keeps running ahead of buying
The strange feature of 2026 is that credit has not followed the sales curve down. Credipass, Duna House's financing arm, expects roughly HUF 255 billion of new mortgage lending for August alone. Hungary has spent much of the year posting record loan volumes against flat or falling deal counts. That combination points to bigger individual loans rather than more buyers — the arithmetic of a market where the qualifying minority borrows more per transaction, with Otthon Start's capped rate doing the heavy lifting for those inside the scheme.
Prices have not yet noticed
Volumes and prices are moving in opposite directions. Glopra's own national series puts Hungary at $2,150 per square metre with a gross rental yield of 4.69%, and local-currency prices still 12.3% above a year ago — 21.7% in dollar terms once the forint's move is added. A market where transactions drop by double digits while asking prices climb by double digits is a market with a widening bid-ask gap, not a clearing one, and it is why price cuts have become the norm among Budapest sellers.
What changes from September
The comparison base flips this month. From September 2026 onward, year-on-year figures are measured against the launch of Otthon Start rather than the rush that preceded it, which will mechanically flatter the autumn numbers. Investors reading Hungary should separate the two effects: the subsidised-loan channel is genuinely large, but it is concentrated in first-time buyers under the scheme's price and income caps, and it does not describe the second-hand market outside those limits. Duna House's estimate is a monthly agency series, not the official register — the Central Statistical Office's transaction data, published with a longer lag, remains the authoritative count.
Sources: Portfolio.hu (Duna House monthly estimate), 1 Sep 2026 https://www.portfolio.hu/ingatlan/20260901/elmaradt-a-vart-attores-nagyot-esett-a-lakasvasarlasok-szama-magyarorszagon-859626