After stalling in September, rents rose again in October, by 0.4% nationally and 0.9% in the capital compared to the previous month, while real rents increased by 0.5% nationally and 1.0% in Budapest. In October, however, the level of real rents, which rose for much of 2023, was still around 3% below the peak recorded in summer 2022, following the epidemic outbreak.

Slight increase in real rents

After stalling in September, supply rents rose slightly in October, by 0.4% nationally and by 0.9% in Budapest compared with the previous month.

October rents were 13% higher than in the same period of the previous year both nationally and in Budapest, and 95% and 86% higher than in the base period of 2015.

The increase in nominal rents has been essentially continuous since the beginning of 2021, apart from a temporary decline at the end of 2022, but the rate of increase has lagged behind inflation since August 2022, so that real rents have followed a downward trend for half a year. Since February 2023, the real rent index has started to rise again, and is now at 121% of its 2015 base, lower than the peak (around 130%) in the second half of 2019, which was reached before the coronavirus pandemic, and also lower than the highest level (126%) in the post-pandemic period, in the summer of 2022.

In October 2023, real rents rose slightly by 0.5% nationally and by 1.0% in Budapest, in line with the slight 0.1% fall in consumer prices.

In the Pest side of the capital, rents rose by 0.7% in the inner districts, by 1.4% in the transitional districts and were virtually stagnant (-0.1%) in the outer districts compared to the previous month. On the Buda side, supply rents changed by less than 1%. Over the course of one year, the capital's districts generally saw rent increases of 11-12%, with only the transitional districts of Pest seeing larger increases (15%).

No significant change in the rental housing market

Until October 2023, 56% of the advertisements considered were for dwellings in the capital, 29% in a town with county rights and 14% in a town without county rights. The average floor area of the dwellings advertised for rent was 55 m2 in Budapest and 57 m2 in the towns with county rights. In the smaller municipalities - the non-county towns and villages - the dwellings for rent tend to be larger, with an average floor area of 67 m2 in October 2023. The properties for rent with the largest floor area (79 m2 on average) continued to be advertised in Pest county.  

Nationally, the vast majority (91%) of the observed advertisements were for homes in multi-dwelling buildings, with the remaining 9% being for detached houses. In Budapest, however, only 4.0% of dwellings for rent were detached houses. In the first ten months of 2023, 44% of ads nationally and 43% in the capital came from individuals.

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