MBH Sees Hungarian Home Prices Up 8–13% in 2026 as Sales Run 10% Behind
MBH Bank expects Hungarian home prices to rise 8-13% in 2026, yet first-half sales came in 10% below last year at 32,456 transactions, its analysts said.
MBH Bank's analysis centre expects Hungarian home prices to climb 8% to 13% nationally this year, with between 118,000 and 125,000 homes changing hands against roughly 147,000 in 2025. Senior sector analyst Horti Flóra presented the second-quarter housing monitor, reported by Portfolio.hu on 17 August and Economx on 18 August. The forecast has to be read against what the first half actually delivered: 32,456 transactions, 10% fewer than a year earlier.
The price line has already bent
Annual nominal price growth cooled from 17.8% to 12.3% by the second quarter of 2026, and prices fell 1.1% from the first quarter. Set that against 2025, when the twelve-month rate reached 23.5%, and the deceleration is unmistakable — a market slowing from a sprint, not collapsing.
The forecast range itself is worth pausing on. With the second quarter already running at 12.3% year on year and down 1.1% on the quarter, the lower end of MBH's band implies a soft autumn, while the 13% upper bound implies prices resume climbing. Five percentage points is a wide band for a single year, and MBH presents it as one.
What holds the forecast up
The macro backdrop is unusually supportive on paper. July inflation came in at 1.2%, with MBH expecting a 2.2% average for 2026 and 3.1% for 2027. Gross wages are growing at close to 9%, so real incomes are rising fast. The central bank's base rate stands at 5.75% following a 25 basis point cut in July.
Credit is doing the heavy lifting. New residential loan contracts reached HUF 1,578bn in the first half, 94.8% more than a year earlier, and MBH expects full-year disbursements above HUF 2,700bn with the mortgage stock growing 25% to 28%. A market where transactions fall 10% while lending nearly doubles is one where buyers are borrowing far more per purchase than before.
Rents, and what a square metre costs
Rents rose about 5% nationally over twelve months to July and 5.5% in Budapest, where the median asking rent reached HUF 260,000 a month. Debrecen was identified as the most expensive market outside the capital.
Glopra's Hungary snapshot puts the national average at $2,150 per square metre with a 4.69% gross rental yield, prices 12.3% higher in forint and 21.1% higher in US dollars over twelve months, and bubble risk at 69 out of 100 — the elevated band. Budapest sits at $4,376 per square metre on a 4.63% gross yield and a bubble score of 64. The standardised non-resident rental tax of 13.5% used in Glopra's methodology leaves roughly 4.1% net on the national figure.
The honest tension in these numbers is the gap between volume and value. Fewer, larger, more heavily financed deals can hold an index up while the market underneath thins out. Subsidised lending is doing much of that work, which makes any change to those schemes the single variable most likely to move the 8-13% range.
Sources: Portfolio.hu, MBH Elemzési Centrum Q2 2026 housing monitor, 17 Aug 2026 https://www.portfolio.hu/ingatlan/20260817/kiderult-mi-var-iden-a-lakasvasarlokra-megszolalt-az-mbh-elemzoje-a-jovobeli-arakrol-856654; Economx, 18 Aug 2026 https://www.economx.hu/ingatlan/2026/08/18/lakaspiac-ingatlan-lakasarak-dragulas-hitelezes-2026/