In Q4 2022, Hungarian residential property prices fell by 3.6% compared to the previous quarter. The Central Bank of Hungary (MNB) reports the sharpest decline was seen in smaller municipalities.
According to the latest MNB house price index, house prices started to fall in both Budapest and outside the capital. In Budapest, residential property prices declined by 1.1% in Q4 2022, while a 2.0% rise was seen in the previous quarter. In the capital, nominal housing price growth declined to 16.1% in annual terms.
In rural cities, following a marginal decline of 0.2% in the previous quarter, house prices were down by 2.9%, and annual house price growth, in turn, fell from 22.7% to 14.4%. In municipalities, residential property prices declined significantly in six months, a fall of 7.1% in 2022 Q3 followed by another decrease of 6.6% in 2022 Q4. Consequently, the annual growth rate only amounted to 0.3% in nominal terms.
In 2022 Q4, conflicting developments were seen in house prices of different regions. In Western Transdanubia, house prices rose by 1.3%, and in Pest by 4.1% on a quarterly basis, but in the latter case the majority of transaction data have not been processed yet. By contrast, in the cities in the Southern Great Plain, Southern Transdanubia and Northern Hungary, residential property prices fell by 1.3%, 2.8% and 3.6%, respectively in nominal terms.
The sharpest decreases of 5.6% and 5.7% were seen in Central Transdanubia and the Northern Great Plains, respectively, quarterly. On an annual basis, the strongest house price growth of 27.6% was observed in the cities of Pest, while at 8.7%, the growth was the weakest in the cities of Northern Hungary.
