Growing Numbers Are Relocating from the Capital Budapest

The population of Budapest decreased by 0.4 percent to 1.62 million in a year, marking a nearly four percent decrease in the number of permanent residents compared to 2019, Világgazdaság reports.

The number of permanent residents in Hungary fell both year-on-year and compared with the level five years earlier in 2019. In January this year, the Ministry of Interior recorded 9,765,254 permanent residents, down 0.4 percent – almost 39,000 – from a year earlier, according to a recent analysis by the real estate advertising site Ingatlan.com.

The longer-term data, compared to 2019, shows that the number of residents has increased in the border and agglomeration settlements. In the former, commuting for work abroad and the presence of foreign home buyers play the biggest role.

The rise in housing prices in the agglomerations is due to people moving out of the cities.

Many people have left their homes to look for larger housing in the agglomeration. And in small settlements with a good location, the introduction of the rural CSOK (Family Housing Allowance available in rural areas) has also helped population growth, said László Balogh, chief economic expert at Ingatlan.com.

Mezőörs, in Győr-Moson-Sopron County, saw the biggest increase in the number of permanent residents last year. With more than 1,200 inhabitants, the village had 30 percent more people living there at the beginning of the year compared to January 2023. Homes for sale have also increased in price by the same amount in a year. The average price per square meter has increased nine-fold in five years to HUF 460,000 (EUR 1,418 / 1 EUR=394.88 HUF), based on data from Ingatlan.com.

In terms of population change, Rajka, also in Győr-Moson-Sopron County, saw the biggest increase in the number of inhabitants over five years, up 96 percent to 6,953.

At the same time, the average price per square meter of homes for sale there rose by 145 percent to HUF 815,000.

The population of Nagytarcsa in Pest county, part of the capital’s agglomeration, also increased significantly by 39 percent compared to 2019. Residential property prices have doubled, with average prices per square meter reaching HUF 886,000 this year.

The population of the agglomerations has developed in an interesting way:

Érd, for example, became one of the twenty most populous cities with a population of over 70,000.

In five years, the average price per square meter in this city has risen by 108 percent to HUF 814,000. Looking at the other cities, Nyíregyháza (northeastern Hungary), Esztergom (northwestern Hungary), Kecskemét (central Hungary), and Szombathely (western Hungary) recorded the smallest falls of less than three percent.

The prices of residential properties have increased significantly, with the average price per square meter in these cities reaching HUF 549,000-814,000 this year, representing a 77-110 percent increase compared to 2019.

Via Világgazdaság, Featured image: Pixabay