WWhen my family left a university home in 2007 and moved to the center of Budapest city, the costs of housing were barely the subject of a conversation between my friends. I rented rooms in central apartments for 80 to 100 pounds per month. Soon forward to 2025 and a similar room in a joint apartment that will bring you back at least 200 pounds – twice the price of 15 years. He spoke to any person in his twenties in Budapest today, and the in -depth housing crisis will inevitably appear as one of the distinctive struggles in their lives.
Statistics paint a bleak picture equally. Between 2010 and 2024, the Hungary saw The largest increase in the housing price index Among the member states of the European Union. While the European Union average increased by 55.4 %, the housing price index in Hungary reached 234 %. At the same time, the net net income for the individual Just grown by 86 % in 2010s. Budapest, the capital, is the center of this crisis. According to Hungarian National BankThe estimation of residential real estate prices is 5-19 %. This is partially explained with a high percentage of investment-based purchases: These transactions have reached 30-50 % of all transactions in the past five years in Hungary. Unlike many other European Union capitals, real estate investors in Budapest are not primarily from foreign citizens – who represent only 7.3 % of transactions between 2016 and 2022 – nor are they founding players. Instead, they are usually individual Hungarian citizens. Since real estate has become an increasingly attractive investment for the families of the upper and middle class amid the increasing economic uncertainty, it was the result. Deepening polarization within the Hungarian community.
The problem has become so blatant that after a decade of silence, the right -wing government of fidesz began to recognize it in recent months. Since his arrival in power in 2010 by a constitutional majority, Fieldsz housing policies have mainly focused on Support to buy homes for middle -class families. Only about 10 % of all governmental spending on housing targeted low -income groups. Meanwhile, the public housing sector in Hungary has dramatically, from covering 20 % of housing shares in 1990 to only 2 % today.
The government’s long neglect of the housing issue is not a coincidence. It stems from an ideological narration with a deep root. In 2014, Prime Minister Victor Urban announced in interview: “My primary principle is that my home is my castle-I am a believer in the owner of the owner and family homes.” This narration-common throughout the previous eastern countries-draws homes as a kind of cultural pot, and depicts public housing programs on a large scale in the socialist era as historical deviations.
But this opinion is neither historical nor economically realistic. In fact, housing policies in the socialist era bears strong similarities with public housing systems in Gharbia Europe. The developments of the affordable housing helped cost millions of social movement, which led to opportunities that could not have been previously imagined. However, after 1990, the anti-communist feelings, along with the reforms of “shock therapy”-have made the quick privatization of half a million painters-with a political imagination that led to marginalization of housing and public housing, and replaced it with a dream of ownership of comprehensive homes.
Today, however, this dream slip away. Over the past decade, the percentage of families living in rented housing was in Budapest It grew from 12.7 % to 17.5 %With excessive youth: 35 % of this group He lived in rented residence in 2022. Last year alone, rents increased by almost 10 %. Despite the average ownership of Hungary’s national homes Still about 90 %ARentalIt is clear that young people are increasingly appearing in the capital. Young people who do not have financial support for the family sees the ownership of homes increasingly as an irreplaceable goal. A recent survey found that 38 % of the Budapest adult population will consider rental-if safe options are affordable. With the available legend of the ownership of the house more clearly available, Request for housing rent at reasonable prices grows.
Despite the lack of systematic government support at reasonable prices in Budapest, some desired initiatives began to crystallize. Budapest municipality It was recently launched The Social Housing Agency is inspired by the successful models of the civil sector. With 16.7 % of the city’s housing is not occupied in 2022, the agency works to deliver vacant real estate to needy families, providing safe management services for owners and reasonable rents to tenants.
Another promising step is that the municipality was recently able to use a legal vulnerability To Boy Brown 85 hectare (210 acres) from the government. The initial plans for the site imagine widespread sustainable development that can include thousands of housing units at reasonable prices. These interventions led by the local government, despite promising, are facing a continuous obstacle from the national government, which opposes the initiatives led by the mayor of the Green opposition in Budapest.
Meanwhile, residents and civil society groups are trying to create solutions from bottom to top. the Alliance for Cooperative Real Estate DevelopmentFor example, it tries the housing models led by society. Inspired by Germany Mietshäuser syndikatthe Zugló Collective Association He bought a housing unit in 2018 and managed it according to cooperative principles, ensuring reasonable rents for seven tenants. Without reaching public support or moral financing, the project was funded through direct loans from friends and activists. Similar efforts are made in another cities in the region, and the network of leading residential cooperatives – Moba, means “self-construction through mutual assistance” in Serbo-Croatian – It was already prepared.
These popular initiatives can provide some hope for a generation that has faced increasing difficulties. However, the systematic transformation of these housing systems cannot be imagined unless these governments change the path – so The European Union begins to direct more direct financing Towards affordable housing in the cities of Hungarian and other Eastern Europe.
