Part I — Situation overview

In a single week in August four housing policy instruments appeared at once, and each of them modifies the effect of the others. On 18 August the minister for transport and investment announced that until 31 December the government is suspending the priority investment decrees linked to the brownfield programme and to the subsidised housing loan programme: the projects are being screened, and only after that will the government decide whether they may continue, and on what conditions. According to Duna House’s estimate the review affects 28 projects and on the order of 17 thousand dwellings; five projects comprising some 2,600 dwellings in total fall off the list concerned, because they have already received a building permit. The state secretary responsible for architectural and building construction investments clarified a few days later: for investments already holding a permit, acquired rights will not be withdrawn, while those that do not yet hold a permit may obtain one if they meet the transport, urban design, affordability and sustainability conditions, and if they have the support of the local government.

The second instrument appeared on the mobility side: since the elections 29 settlements have withdrawn their decrees restricting residency adopted in defence of local identity, several mayors giving as their reason that with hindsight they recognised the unfairness of the rules. The legal possibility of adopting a similar decree remains unchanged. The third is the organisational leg: with effect from 15 August a deputy state secretary responsible for housing was appointed at the transport ministry. And the fourth arrived at the level of a suggestion — an analytical institute proposed taxing dwellings standing empty. Behind all this stands a longer-term figure: in 2025 12,062 dwellings were completed in Hungary, which over a three-year horizon is a fall of some 40 per cent; the 17 thousand dwellings concerned therefore represent a substantial part of the coming years’ new supply. The balance of the subsidised loan programme’s first year is meanwhile mixed: the programme produced a contract stock of over 2,000 billion forints and 56 thousand contracts, the number of building permits grew in a year from 24 thousand to close to 32 thousand, but that of dwellings actually completed only from 12 thousand to 13 thousand. House prices meanwhile rose by 12.3 per cent nationally and by 8.3 per cent in Budapest compared with the quarter preceding the announcement.

MIAK’s reading: the four instruments do not add up, they interact. Restraining the supply side and releasing the mobility restrictions move prices in opposite directions; and a vacancy tax will only have a supply-increasing effect if the local rental market absorbs the stock concerned at all. Without an examination of sequence and interaction the outcome of the package cannot be estimated in advance — and in the field of housing a mistaken sequence is not neutral but price-raising. The substantive question is therefore not whether the four steps are each individually right, but which of them is the precondition for which.

Part II — Foundations in the literature

The strongest empirical answer to the question of sequence is given by Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister, in his memoir From Third World to First: the same home ownership programme failed in 1964 and succeeded in 1968, and for a single reason — in the meantime the cover for the buyers’ own contribution had been created, that is, the precondition was placed ahead of the instrument. In Principles of Political Economy John Stuart Mill, the English economist and philosopher, adds the yardstick of principle on the taxation side: from the point of view of the common good it is not earned but unearned increases in wealth that it is warranted to restrain. Today’s debate on a vacancy tax can also be traced back to this idea — with the qualification that the unearned increment must first be measurable. And Thomas Piketty, the French economist and leading researcher of long-run data on wealth inequality, shows the stake: in developed countries roughly half of private wealth is held in residential property, and housing policy is therefore not one sectoral question among many but one of the main shapers of the structure of wealth. The detailed treatment of the literature — author by author, with quotations — can be found in section 6.4 Literature in detail.

Part III — MIAK’s concrete proposal

MIAK proposes three measurable measures.

3.1 A public sequencing and interaction impact assessment for the four instruments (within 60 days)

MIAK proposes that within sixty days a public analysis be prepared of how the four announced instruments affect one another. The analysis should give a quantified answer to four questions: (1) how many dwellings will actually be lost from, or delayed within, the next three years’ supply because of the review, at project level and with a schedule; (2) how much additional demand the withdrawal of the residency restrictions represents in the 29 settlements concerned, and where this meets the lost supply; (3) how large the housing stock is that a vacancy tax would reach at all, by settlement type; (4) which measure is the precondition for which, that is, in what sequence the steps produce the intended effect. The fourth question is the most important, and it is the one that no published material answers today. The proposal builds on programme points SZ3 (housing data platform) and EP2 (housing construction data platform): both describe precisely the data assets without which this analysis cannot be prepared — and which are therefore in themselves the first step.

3.2 A screening framework and a decision deadline published in advance (before the suspension expires)

Suspending priority investment status is in itself a defensible decision: according to the state secretary’s statement, the earlier construction also meant accelerated permitting, exemption from consultation with the local government and a loan backed by a state guarantee, which gave a competitive advantage without requiring any contribution to the burdens of public services. MIAK proposes, however, that the four criteria of the screening mentioned — transport, urban design, affordability and sustainability — should also appear publicly, in measurable form, before the decisions are taken. It should be made clear exactly what the affordability condition means (for example, what share of the dwellings realised in a given project should fall below the local median price), and what the threshold value for transport carrying capacity is. In addition, a project-by-project decision deadline should be placed ahead of the 31 December suspension deadline, so that investors and buyers do not have to wait until the last day of the year. This proposal follows directly the logic of I3 (legislative impact assessment) and EP1 (digital building permitting — the principle of the authority decision bound to a deadline). The argument is simple: a criterion published in advance also protects the authority, because it removes the appearance of case-by-case discretion.

3.3 Measurement first, tax second: a vacancy register as the precondition for taxation (within 12 months)

The idea of a vacancy tax is defensible in principle, but in the current Hungarian state of data it is not enforceable: no reliable, settlement-level data are available on how many dwellings actually stand empty, for what reason, and for how long. MIAK therefore proposes that the debate on its introduction be preceded by a twelve-month measurement phase built on the housing data platform under programme point SZ3: by linking the land registry, utility consumption data, the local government rental housing register and short-term letting data, with a uniform and public definition of vacancy. The definition is the key question: a property under renovation, in a probate procedure or in seasonal use is not the same category as an empty dwelling held for speculative purposes — and the tax will only have an effect on the latter. The result of the measurement phase will also decide whether it is worth levying a tax at all: if the urban vacancy rate is low, then the instrument carries a high political cost and a small supply effect. The proposal applies to the housing market the data logic of G7 (wealth inequality monitoring) and SZ9 (public monitoring of wealth inequality).

The three proposals are bound together by the same principle: in housing policy the instruments work in relation to one another, not on their own. Lee Kuan Yew’s Singapore case (see 6.4.1) is precisely an example of the extreme case in which the same instrument first failed and then, four years later, succeeded — not because it changed, but because in the meantime its precondition had been created.

Part IV — Expected effects and risks

Dimension Expected effect Risk
Housing market Project screening can filter out investments that exceed the carrying capacity of local infrastructure; criteria published in advance reduce uncertainty The suspension affects a substantial part of the coming years’ supply in a market where the number of dwellings completed has fallen by some 40 per cent over three years — a narrowing of supply raises prices
Territorial mobility Withdrawing the residency restrictions restores free choice of place of residence and loosens the territorial constraint on labour Increased mobility means additional demand on the urban rental market; if supply narrows at the same time, the two effects move prices in the same direction, upwards
Social policy A vacancy register is in itself a policy instrument: it shows where unused stock is to be found A tax without measurement is badly targeted: it penalises the owner of a property under renovation or in a probate procedure, and does not reach speculative holding
Wealth inequality Residential property is roughly half of private wealth; housing market measures therefore directly shape the structure of wealth If supply restriction and demand stimulus run at the same time, this primarily increases the wealth of those who already own property — that is, the programme may deepen inequality

The package’s main tension runs between quality and quantity. The screening enforces quality criteria — infrastructure, affordability, local government agreement — but it does so in a market whose main problem is quantity: too few dwellings are being built. The proposal tips towards the risk side if the screening drags on and the filtering ends up halting not only genuinely problematic projects but also those planned on good sites. It works if the suspension is short, the criteria are known in advance, and supply replacement takes the place of the projects filtered out — for example local government rental housing development, or the acceleration of already permitted projects. The second question for consideration is temporal: the effect of releasing the mobility restrictions is immediate, that of expanding supply takes three to five years. This phase shift is in itself price-raising, and that is precisely why the sequence has to be thought through in advance, not explained after the fact.

Part V — Measurability and summary

5.1 What is worth following? (suggested KPIs)

MIAK proposes four performance indicators (KPIs, Key Performance Indicators) from which it will be visible in 12 and 36 months whether the package worked:

  • The annual number of new dwellings completed: the 2025 level of 12,062 dwellings is the baseline. Suggested target: the figure should exceed 20 thousand by 2029 — this is the magnitude at which supply substantially slows price growth.
  • The number of dwellings actually lost through the screening: of the some 17 thousand dwellings subject to review, how many are realised, how many are delayed and how many are lost for good, in a scheduled breakdown. Suggested target: decisions should be concluded project by project by 31 December 2026.
  • The development of rents in the university towns: the annual change in rents in Budapest and in the large university towns. Suggested target: the rise should not exceed the rate of growth of average earnings — this is the yardstick that measures affordability, not the price level.
  • The completion and coverage of the vacancy register: within 12 months a public estimate based on a uniform definition, for at least the 25 largest cities.

5.2 Summary

MIAK’s request to the decision-maker in a single sentence: before any of the four instruments is finalised, publish how they affect one another. Concretely: sixty days for the sequencing and interaction analysis, screening criteria published in advance of the project decisions, and a twelve-month measurement phase before the debate on a vacancy tax. This is not delay — the suspension runs until the end of December in any case, so there is time for the analysis. And the message to the public is that in the field of housing even well-intentioned measures can spoil one another if there is no sequence behind them.

Two MIAK foundational values move together here. Data-drivenness, because housing is the field with the largest gap between the weight of the decisions and the quality of the available data: we do not know exactly how many dwellings stand empty, yet we would levy a tax on them. And openness, because publishing the screening criteria in advance serves the investors concerned, the buyers and the decision-maker itself at the same time — a yardstick known in advance is the only instrument that dispels the suspicion of case-by-case discretion. MIAK would hold the next government to this same yardstick.

Part VI — Reasoning and further sources

6.1 The framing of the press by spectrum

The economic band carried the most detailed treatment. Portfolio followed the week in four separate pieces: it dealt separately with the dwelling-number implications of the suspension, the withdrawal of the residency restrictions, the personnel decision and the market reactions, so that the paper’s frame remained purely quantitative and market-based. The same editorial office weighed up the first year of the subsidised loan programme in a series of charts on 1 September, and the framing there too was that of the figures: how large the volume is, how much of it is crowding-out effect, by how much prices have risen, and by how much the number of permits and of dwellings actually completed has grown. This duality — many permits, barely more dwellings completed — is the week’s most important data point, and the direct basis of MIAK’s proposal 3.1.

In the left-liberal band Telex, with the analysis by G7, placed the emphasis on the ownership and regulatory antecedents: the origin of the priority status, the environmental permit issued without an impact assessment, and the exclusion of the local government from the permitting procedure. The framing here is that of accountability, not of the housing market — the two bands therefore consider the same measure important for two different reasons. HVG carried the legality review of the local identity decrees, in a legal frame.

In the public affairs band 24.hu approached from the direction of the rental market: after the announcement of the university admission thresholds, the expert of ingatlan.com measured a smaller than usual increase in demand of 5-6 per cent, and part of the explanation is the loan programme itself — many chose buying instead of renting, because the instalment may be lower than the rent. ATV carried the vacancy tax proposal. The conservative band did not bring the housing package into a separate analytical focus this week. By MIAK’s yardstick of freedom from ideology it is worth recording: the arguments for and against abolishing priority investment status are equally legitimate — one objects to the absence of local government say and of a contribution to public services, the other to the loss of supply — and the debate would be decided by project-level, scheduled supply figures, not by the attribution of motives.

6.2 Facts and data

Indicator Value Source
Scope of the suspension the priority investment decrees linked to the brownfield programme and to the subsidised housing loan programme, until 31 December 2026 Telex/G7, 18 August 2026
Projects and dwellings affected some 28 projects, on the order of 17 thousand dwellings; of these 5 projects (approx. 2,600 dwellings) hold a permit and thus fall outside the review Duna House estimate, after Telex/G7
Projects granted priority status in total 33 projects, some 20 thousand dwellings; of these five hold a building permit data supplied by Eltinga, after Portfolio (the article was not publicly downloadable; based on the lead paragraph)
Dwellings completed in 2025 12,062, a fall of some 40 per cent over three years Telex/G7, 18 August 2026
Settlements withdrawing their decrees restricting residency 29 since the elections compilation by RTL Híradó, after Portfolio (the article was not publicly downloadable; based on the lead paragraph)
Mandate of the deputy state secretary responsible for housing from 15 August 2026 Portfolio, 18 August 2026 (the article was not publicly downloadable; based on the lead paragraph)
First year of the subsidised loan programme contract stock of over 2,000 billion HUF, 56 thousand contracts by mid-August central bank data, Portfolio, 1 September 2026
Building permits 24 thousand in the year before the programme was announced, close to 32 thousand afterwards (+31 per cent) Portfolio, 1 September 2026
Dwellings actually completed in the same comparison from 12 thousand to 13 thousand (+6.6 per cent) Portfolio, 1 September 2026
House price rise compared with the quarter before the announcement 12.3 per cent nationally, 8.3 per cent in Budapest central bank house price index, Portfolio, 1 September 2026
Rental demand after the announcement of the admission thresholds growth of 5-6 per cent, smaller than the average of earlier years ingatlan.com, 24.hu, 21 August 2026

Read together, the last two rows but one give the package’s most important lesson: the number of permits grew by a third, that of dwellings completed barely at all — that is, the bottleneck is not at permitting but at realisation. This is the data point that makes a prior impact assessment particularly warranted for every further intervention affecting the supply side.

6.3 Policy dimensions

  • Construction affairs (programme points) — the housing construction data platform and the predictability of permitting: EP2 provides the data basis for the interaction analysis, while EP1 provides the principle of the authority decision bound to a deadline, which can be carried over to the screening as well;
  • Social policy (programme points) — the housing data platform and the measurement of vacancy: SZ3 describes precisely the register that is the precondition for a vacancy tax, and SZ9 the public tracking of wealth inequality;
  • Economy (programme points) — residential property wealth as the main element of the structure of wealth: the monitoring logic of G7 makes it measurable whose wealth housing market interventions increase;
  • Territorial inequality and rural policy (programme points) — the connection between mobility and housing: the mobility support logic of programme point TE5 is directly affected by the withdrawal of the residency restrictions.

6.4 Literature in detail

6.4.1 Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First — The Singapore Story

The history of the Singaporean home ownership programme is the best documented case of the sequencing of housing policy instruments. According to Lee Kuan Yew’s account the housing authority launched the home ownership programme in 1964, with low-interest loans of fifteen years’ maturity — and yet the programme did not take off. Lee gives the reason in a single sentence: “The prospective buyers could not raise the twenty per cent of the sale price required as their own contribution.” The turn came in 1968, when the amendment of the act on the compulsory savings fund made it possible for employees to pay their own contribution out of their accumulated savings, and to repay the loan from them over twenty years. The same instrument, the same authority, the same objective — the only difference was that the financial precondition had been placed ahead of the instrument.

For the Hungarian situation this yields two lessons. The first: the success or failure of a housing policy instrument does not follow from the instrument itself, but from what stands before it. The second, which Lee also records: the social effects of the programme appeared decades after its introduction, and some of them were unforeseen — the industrial jobs sited next to the housing estates, for example, led to the doubling or tripling of family incomes, because women were drawn into the labour market as well. Housing policy is therefore not a sectoral but a structural question, and its impact assessment has to be equally broad.

📖 Source: Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First — The Singapore Story

6.4.2 John Stuart Mill: Principles of Political Economy

In the book of the Principles dealing with distribution, Mill introduces the distinction that forms the core of principle in today’s debate on a vacancy tax. In Mill’s view taxing higher incomes at a higher rate would be to tax industry and thrift; instead he puts it thus:

“It is not the earned but the unearned kinds of wealth that it is warranted, from the point of view of the common good, to bring under restraint.”

Mill applies this primarily to ground rent and inheritance, but the structure of the argument carries over directly to residential property: the increase in value that derives not from the owner’s outlay but from the development of the surroundings — a new transport link, institution or workplace — falls to be judged differently from earned wealth. The strongest argument for a vacancy tax is not that an empty dwelling is in itself reprehensible, but that while it is held without use it also shares in this community-generated increase in value.

The same argument also gives the tax its limit. Mill’s yardstick is earnedness, not emptiness — a property under renovation, in a probate procedure or in seasonal use therefore does not belong in the same category. The measurement phase of MIAK’s proposal 3.3 is intended to underpin precisely this distinction with data: it is only worth levying a tax on what has first been precisely defined and measured.

📖 Source: John Stuart Mill: Principles of Political Economy

6.4.3 Thomas Piketty: A tőke a 21. században (Capital in the Twenty-First Century)

In the chapter on the structure of wealth Piketty gives the magnitude that shows the weight of housing policy: in developed countries the capital stock is at present divided into two roughly equal parts — on the one hand residential property, on the other the working capital used by companies and the state. In his summary relating to the 2010s this means wealth of some 180 thousand euros per inhabitant, of which roughly 90 thousand euros is held in the form of residential property. Piketty adds that the level of the capital/income ratio in individual countries also depends on the share of residential property within total capital.

Translated to today’s Hungarian situation, this means that a housing market intervention is not the regulation of one sector but a decision affecting roughly half of private wealth. From this follows one of MIAK’s most important warnings: if supply restriction and demand stimulus run at the same time — and in the present package the investment suspension and the release of the mobility restrictions do precisely that — then the effect will primarily be an increase in the wealth of those who already own property. This is not an intended consequence, but it is a predictable one; the interaction analysis of proposal 3.1 would make exactly this visible before the decision.

📖 Source: Thomas Piketty: A tőke a 21. században (Capital in the Twenty-First Century)

6.5 International comparison

The international balance sheet of vacancy taxes is mixed, and the difference is explained precisely by measurement. In Vancouver, before and alongside the vacancy tax introduced in 2017, a detailed annual declaration system was built up in which every owner declares the use of the property; after the tax was introduced the number of dwellings standing empty fell substantially according to the city’s reports, and the stock released moved onto the long-term rental market. In France the vacancy tax tied to a list of settlements with tight markets is likewise linked to a register. Where, by contrast, the tax was introduced without prior measurement, the main result was the number of legal disputes, because the exemption categories — renovation, inheritance, seasonal use — were defined after the fact.

On the supply side the Berlin experience provides the counter-example, which MIAK’s own programme point also records: the official rent reference stabilised the rental market, but as a side effect investment fell back by some 15 per cent, because returns became unpredictable. The lesson is the same in both directions, and it applies directly to the Hungarian package: interventions affecting the demand and the supply side have to be modelled together, because they modify each other’s effects.

Construction affairs

  • EP1 — Digital building permitting
  • EP2 — Housing construction data platform

Social policy

  • SZ3 — Housing data platform
  • SZ9 — Public monitoring of wealth inequality

Economy

  • G7 — Wealth inequality monitoring

Territorial inequality and rural policy

  • TE5 — Local economic development and mobility support

Suggested new programme point: A mandatory interaction impact assessment for housing policy instruments introduced at the same time — for the Construction affairs policy area.

6.7 List of sources

Press sources (MIAK topic monitor, 6 September 2026 — topic 2; the press material is from the monitors of 19 and 21 August and of 1 September 2026):

Knowledge base references (specialist books):

  • 📖 Lee Kuan Yew: From Third World to First — The Singapore Story
  • 📖 John Stuart Mill: Principles of Political Economy
  • 📖 Thomas Piketty: A tőke a 21. században (Capital in the Twenty-First Century)

MIAK internal materials:

  • MIAK policy area: Construction affairs (programme points; programme point ID: EP1, EP2)
  • MIAK policy area: Social policy (programme points; programme point ID: SZ3, SZ9)
  • MIAK policy area: Economy (programme points; programme point ID: G7)
  • MIAK policy area: Territorial inequality and rural policy (programme points; programme point ID: TE5)
  • MIAK topic monitor, 6 September 2026 — topic 2, score: 95/100

Supplementary public data sources:

  • Housing construction and housing stock statistics of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office; the central bank’s house price index and housing market report; Eurostat housing cost overburden rate; OECD Affordable Housing Database

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