New home-loan contracts totalled 211.7 billion forints, down 16.9% month on month. Otthon Start still accounted for most lending.
Hungarian banks signed new home-loan contracts worth 211.7 billion forints in August, down 16.9% from July, according to National Bank of Hungary data cited by 24.hu. The decline was mainly attributed to weaker demand for subsidized mortgage programmes.
Market-rate home loans fell 14.6% to 51.9 billion forints. Demand dropped most sharply for other subsidized loans, mainly the CSOK programmes, where new contracts fell below 15 billion forints, more than 26% below July. Lending under the Otthon Start scheme declined 16.7% to 145 billion forints, while the number of contracts fell 17.7%. The average Otthon Start loan exceeded 35.7 million forints.
Mortgage demand remains strong compared with previous years, financial expert Peter Gergely of BiztosDöntés.hu told the outlet. He said the August decline could not be explained by seasonality alone because some earlier years recorded higher lending in August. In 2025, the drop was steeper as borrowers waited for the launch of Otthon Start.
Subsidized mortgages accounted for 78.9% of the total value of contracts in the first eight months of 2026, up from 20.6% a year earlier. Their volume increased from about 218 billion to 1.612 trillion forints. From the scheme’s launch in September 2025 through August 2026, borrowers took out 2.045 trillion forints in Otthon Start loans to buy first homes. The programme offers an interest rate of up to 3%.
24.hu also reported that banks are offering one-off incentives worth several hundred thousand forints, alongside possible rate and upfront-cost discounts. These are bank promotions and may vary.