Falling Real Estate Investment from Outside the EEA

In the 125,000 or so transactions that took place on the Hungarian real estate market last year, there were 2,524 cases of foreign investors who had to apply for a property purchase because they were not citizens of the European Union, the European Economic Area (EEA) or Switzerland. This is a 7%% drop compared to 2021, the real estate broker Duna House pointed out in a statement sent to MTI on Monday.

Károly Benedikt, head of PR and analysis at Duna House, said in the statement that last year there was no major price decline in the Hungarian real estate market, which also affected the willingness of foreign citizens to buy property.

The majority of property purchase applications, 73%, were for a house or apartment in the capital. The capital was followed by Pest, then Zala and Győr-Moson-Sopron counties in the list of popular areas for investment.

Chinese property buyers remain the most active in the Hungarian market, but their share fell from 36.3% in 2021 to 31.5% last year. The most popular areas for Chinese investors in the capital were Angyalföld (District 13), Erzsébetváros (District 7) and Kőbánya (District 10) last year, they said.

The statement added that the share of Ukrainian buyers rose by 2.5 percentage points compared to the previous year, making Ukrainians the fourth largest group of Hungarian property buyers in 2022. The share of Russian investors increased by nearly one percentage point compared to 2021, with Hévíz and the capital's District 13 still the main attraction for them.

The share of Israeli investors rose by two percentage points to 7.41%, with almost half of their transactions closed in District 6.

A significant share of over 5% of UK citizens also bought property in Hungary last year, with a preference for apartments in District 9. Sóskút in Pest County was the main destination for Americans, accounting for nearly 4.2% of transactions.

Of the applications received, the government office issued a negative decision in 40 cases, Duna House said in the statement.