The expected rush on the rental market has yet to materialize: following the announcement of university admission score thresholds, the daily number of phone inquiries about rental properties rose by 6 percent nationwide, barely exceeding last year’s 5.4 percent increase, while in the same period in 2024 average daily demand grew by more than 15 percent — ingatlan.com said.

The statement quoted László Balogh, lead economic expert at ingatlan.com, who said that based on this year’s fresh data, the rental market has split in two. The start of the season is more subdued at the national level, yet in several major university cities demand growth is stronger than last year, and in some locations even stronger than in 2024.

This indicates that student demand has not disappeared, but is appearing in a far more concentrated way in those cities and districts that have larger universities and fewer adequately priced rental properties on offer.

In most cases it is worth comparing market developments to the 2024 situation, because last year’s rental season was already more subdued due to the launch of the Otthon Start programme, the expert added.

They pointed out that significant regional differences lie behind the more moderate national growth. In Szeged, daily average interest is up by 66 percent, in Debrecen by 47 percent, and in Nyíregyháza by 30 percent. In Budapest’s 11th district, an increase of 16 percent was recorded, while in the 9th district it was nearly 10 percent.

The largest relative jump was recorded in Dunaújváros, where daily average interest in rental properties rose by 85 percent from an extremely low base.

They noted that the supply side also responded more cautiously to the start of the season: from the beginning of July last year to the week following the announcement of university admission score thresholds, the national supply grew by nearly 6 percent. During the same period this year, the selection increased by 2 percent.

In the districts of the capital, tenants had 5 percent fewer rental properties to choose from than at the same time last year, while in county seats and cities with county rights, the figure was more than 17 percent lower. The contraction in supply may be attributable to a decline in the yields available from letting properties.

László Balogh also noted in the statement that in the first week after the announcement of admission score thresholds, rental prices had barely changed in any meaningful way.

In Budapest, the median rental price for available apartments was 260,000 forints in early August. This figure stood at 270,000 forints in the 13th district, 285,000 in the 11th district, 240,000 in the 8th district, 290,000 in the 6th district, and 249,000 forints in the 7th district. By contrast, the median rental price was 200,000 forints in the 19th district and 210,000 forints in the 21st district.

Among university cities, the median rental price was 220,000 forints in Debrecen, 215,000 in Szeged, 200,000 each in Győr and Székesfehérvár, 183,000 in Pécs, 130,000 in Miskolc, and 145,000 forints in Dunaújváros, according to the statement from the property listings portal.

Artificial intelligence was used for the translation of parts of the original Hungarian text.