Tourism tax abolished and fast food restaurants excluded from merchants accepting “SZÉP cards”?

According to napi.hu tourism tax (ifa) and its automatic state supplement were originally introduced to act as a source of support for local tourism. Now they may be abolished, even though local governments may still be entitled to levy tourism tax at their own discretion. The supplement thus saved would amount to some HUF 10 billion a year and is planned to be spent directly on hotel or spa development projects.

Fast food restaurants may be deleted from the list of merchants accepting SZÉP cards because the original objective of the scheme was to channel spending to the accommodation industry and leisure activities. Today, the majority of monies spent using SZÉP cards goes to the catering industry which does not directly serve the sustainability of tourism.

Prices soaring in the outskirts of Pest

According to vg.hu the property boom that started last year in Budapest continues in two southern districts of Pest: Kispest (district 19) and Pesterzsébet (district 20) where there are currently more buyers than potentially available residential properties. This sent prices soaring to sometimes unreasonable heights.

Property agents hope that this may change by the end of summer, provided that foreign currency loan settlements and any appeals lodged by disappointed debtors are concluded and those affected can see their possible options for the future. A few years ago brick and mortar and brand new properties were most popular, today it is small and mid-sized apartments in high-rise concrete blocks, mainly in the price range of HUF 7-10 million.

40 per cent more properties changed hands

Index.hu reported that according to one of the largest property agencies almost 12 thousand properties changed hands again in Hungary in May. During the same period last year it was a mere 8500 which equals an increase of approximately 40 per cent within a year. However, there is a slight decrease compared to the previous month which is against the usual seasonal trends: in previous years the property market in May was usually busier than in April.

The boom of the previous two quarters seems to calm down for a while. One of the reasons is prices in Budapest have become rather exorbitant, the other is the new welfare measure called Family Home Allowance (Családi Otthonteremtési Kedvezmény, CSOK) expected to be introduced in July. There was no decline in demand, however with May registering the second highest demand figures this year so far.

Demand for housing was weak for most of 2023, but by the end of the year interest had increased, and from the beginning of 2024 the Csok Plus programme boosted the market

hvg.hu 16.04 In the first quarter of this year, home buyers took advantage of the new subsidy option in almost exactly one sixth of the loans, 16.7 percent. Of course, it was not only the Csok Plus programme that helped, but also the fact that interest rates have started to fall and inflation has also […]

Second highest house price increase in the EU since 2010 in Hungary

hvg.hu, 04 04 – In the last quarter of 2023, the average price of housing in the EU was 48 percent more expensive than in 2010 – Eurostat said. House prices in Hungary rose by 185 percent between 2010 and 2023. This is the second highest increase in the EU, with only Estonia 217 percent […]

Heirs left in the lurch at the probate hearing

napi.hu, 20.01 – Cryptocurrencies, social media profiles or documents stored in the cloud are increasingly common in probate proceedings. However, few people know that in lack of proper regulation and provisions, access to crypto currencies can be questionable for heirs, or that tech giants only allow access to deceased people’s data to those entitled to […]

Property and mortgage market data

napi.hu, 18.01 – More than a third of Budapest clients signed contracts for over HUF 20 million last year. Between September and December, for example, their share was 42%, which reflects an increase of 10 percentage points in 2021. The number of applications in this value range has increased steadily from quarter to quarter, to […]

Real estate prices have increased on the back of CSOK

napi.hu, 5 October – A study shows that the family home allowance (CSOK) has not improved the birth rate, but its amount has been incorporated into the price of homes. Three quarters of the subsidy was bunt up by the price rise, and the number of people having three children has not increased even in […]