József Hegedüs

Metropolitan Research Institute

This study presents the changes in the housing sector since 2000 in four steps. First, we evaluate the Hungarian housing situation in an international comparative context, looking for the connection between economic development and the housing consumption level of households. Then we divide the years after 2000 into three periods, in order to analy...

In this article we show that significant differences between the foreign currency mortgage agreements in Hungary and Poland led to significant differences in monthly mortgage payments after the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) erupted. Hungarian banks were able to add a variable markup to the LIBOR3M that was connected to bank risk on top of the usual...

The comments to Stephens’ crucial overview of Kemeny’s regime theory, discuss two issues. Firstly, the embeddedness of housing in the political and economic system and its narrowed interpretation. Secondly, the analysis of the socialist and the housing systems of the new EU member states based on Kemeny’s approach, which I consider to have low expl...

This paper analyzes the expansion and crisis of the foreign-currency (FX) loan market and responding mortgage-rescue programs in Hungary. We assess changes in the housing regime and illustrate the process through analyzing interactions between individual and institutional (state, financial institution, and municipality) strategies. We argue that th...

A tanulmány a magyar és a lengyel lakásrendszer átalakulását elemzi. A két ország lakásrendszereinek fejlődése számos közös vonást mutatott a második világháború utáni időszakban, s a rendszerváltás után is hasonló irányban változtak: a közösségi bérlakásszektor beszűkült, az állami lakásfinanszírozás megszűnt, a magántulajdoni szektor vált meghatá...

A tanulmány a devizahitel-válság kialakulását és következményeit elemzi a lakásrendszer kontextusában. A lakásprivatizációt előtérbe helyező, az államilag támogatott lakásfinanszírozást felszámoló lakáspolitika 1990 után egy torz lakásrezsimhez vezetett, amely a piaci hitelekkel finanszírozott magántulajdon kiszélesítésében látta a megoldást az ala...

This book presents an overview of private rented housing in selected new EU member states and other transition countries - a topic scarcely researched to date, as it is largely part of the informal economy, and consequently often invisible to official statistics. Part I presents the private rented sector in Western and Northern European countries,...

In Hungary's housing system, home ownership has become the dominant tenure, covering 85%–90% of the housing stock after the first decade of intensive privatisation in the 1990s. Mortgage loans were heavily subsidised between 2000 and 2004 as a part of pro-homeownership housing policy. After cutting the subsidies in 2004 (as the cost of the subsidy...

In the last three decades, Hungary has gone through various stages of economic development including: an authoritarian market system (1979–1990); a transition to a market based mortgage system (1991–2000); dynamic growth and the introduction of irresponsible fiscal policy (2001–2008) and finally, a period of crisis management after 2009. After the...

This paper looks at housing strategy in a wider social and economic context and argues that a household's (class) position in society depends on important life decisions, one of the most important of which is a person's employment strategy and preparation for the period of retirement (pensions), which is related to housing decisions. The main conte...

Housing policy is the product of interaction between stakeholders who each have a distinct set of political and economic interests. While post-socialist countries underwent very similar structural changes in the 1990s, their policy responses showed major variations. The different rent control systems applied by Western governments to social and pri...

In terms of building type, the urban social housing stock in Hungary can be divided into three categories: tenement houses; units in housing estates; individual apartments. The chapter analyses the dynamics of housing affordability, the public rental sector and support for home ownership. After the political changes that took place at the end of th...

After privatisation in the 1990s, the Hungarian public rental sector decreased sharply in size, from 23% to 3% by 2012. Meanwhile, against expectations, the private rental sector (PRS) did not undergo dynamic growth either, its official share now being 4%. The PRS seems to suffer from a number of defects. The tax and subsidy environment makes it un...

The presentation attempts to give an overview of the affordability issue (defined later) in the region of Eastern and Central Europe being aware of the limitations of generalisations for the whole region. Our approach can be categorised as “soft structuralist”, which means that the analysis always takes place on two levels (macro/global and nationa...

Talk given at 2009 ENHR Prague conference "Path dependency" is a popular explanation for institutional changes. In my contribution, I will focus on how much explanatory strength path dependence theory has to explain the changing nature of housing systems in the region. I will shortly touch upon the main features of the Eastern-European Housing Mode...

The global economic crisis had a severe impact on the Hungarian economy at the end of 2008 due to the high public deficit and large FX debt/GDP ratio. Hungary had to take out emergency loans from the IMF and introduced measures such as cutting government expenditures (housing subsidies, pensions, etc.) and levying special taxes. The interim Hungari...

The analytical framework of this paper is based on the general typology of the water organizations along the usual static dimensions of privatization and decentralization. However, other dynamic governance factors, primarily the incentives, the accountability schemes and the rule of law define the actual water service performance. Outcomes of water...

This volume intends to fill the gap in the range of publications about the post-transition social housing policy developments in Central and Eastern Europe by delivering critical evaluations about the past two decades of developments in selected countries’ social housing sectors, and showing what conditions have decisively impacted these processes....

The book intends to fill the gap in the range of publications of post-transitional social housing policy developments in Central and Eastern Europe, delivering a critical evaluation of the developments in selected countries’ social housing sectors. The first part of the book provides a conceptual framework for understanding the process of transiti...

In postsocialist countries, housing estates erected at the edge of urban areas were the typical form of housing investment after the Second World War. Housing estates constituted approximately 40% of the urban housing stock in different tenure forms and were managed by state management companies. After the transition, urban housing estates in most...

Societies are trying to cope with ageing and the consequences of the global financial crisis. In most societies collective welfare arrangements for the elderly are under pressure, and drawing on housing equity can be considered as a potential source of augmenting one's pension and financing one's care in old age. This article explores the way in wh...

Across the EU, populations are shrinking and ageing. An increasing burden is being placed on a smaller working population to generate the taxes required for pensions and care costs. Welfare states are weakening in many countries and across Europe, households are being increasingly expected to plan for their retirement and future care needs within t...

The goal of this paper is to outline the main factors influencing the diverse consequences of the global economic crisis on housing and mortgage markets in two post-socialist economies—the Czech Republic and Hungary. In the former there was a mild decline of markets while in the latter there has been a depression of markets. The paper also contribu...

Examines the post-war development of Hungarian housing policies, throwing new light on the determinants and impact of these policies. Begins with a re-interpretatin of the 'housing classes' concept, and details the external conditions of Budapest's housing market from 1945 to date. Three periods are examined in detail: the attempts to develop total...

Empirically tests three different theoretical solutions to the role to be played by the state and the market in the distribution of material goods in the socialist countries, one being pro-state and the other anti-state. The empirical part consists of a vacancy study conducted in 1982-83 in two middle-sized Hungarian cities (60-80 000 population)....

The soviet bloc collapsed in 1989/1990, since when the political map of the region has changed; new independent countries have emerged, not always in the same peaceful way as the Czech Republic and Slo-vakia. Political systems were transformed, multi-party systems were introduced everywhere in the region, but the one-party systems were not automati...

After the collapse of the socialist block in 1990, urban development in CEE countries was influenced both by special transitional factors (privatization, reactions to distortions inherited from the socialist period) and by global forces (competition, etc.). The countries of the region opened up to the global economy (globalization) to varying degre...

The OSIS research has provided a lot of useful quantitative and qualitative data on what aspects have an influence on housing decisions and how these aspects are interrelated. The effects of the institutional changes (transition processes) in Hungary have been complemented by some further aspects that have to be considered in their dynamics: the co...

The ESPON 1.4.2 Project focuses on at investigating the interrelationship between social and territorial development in order to integrate social aspects in the territorial analysis, as territorial development equally affects spaces, and people who live in these spaces, and vice versa. As preparatory study its task is to explore and evaluate the ma...

This paper explores the background of the emerging of housing allowance system in Hungary after 1990 in the context of the Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Housing allowance in Hungary was first introduced as a decentralized (local government managed) programme, but it went through a development process. The programme was more a part o...

Mortgage markets are coming of age in a number of Eastern Europe and CIS countries. As they do, governments are looking to mortgage-loan associated subsidy schemes to respond to the popular demand for improved housing. This paper presents a detailed examination of the impact of two types of subsidy schemes--mortgage interest rate write-downs, both...

By 1998, 91 percent of all housing units in Hungary were occupied by owners –an extremely high percentage by international standards. Today''s Hungarian housing politicians, whose anti-rental convictions stem from the experience of the previous regime, tend to disregard arguments about the consequences of this bias: the negative impact on mobility,...

In the 1990s, housing finance reached a crisis point in the transforming housing sector. Loans practically disappeared as a resource for housing investments for households and were replaced by savings. Paradoxically, while the institutions of the market economy, including a competitive banking system, have been created in Hungary, in the housing fi...

he transition in East-Central Europe from the centrally planned economy to the market economy turned out to be a very complex process. The debate of shock therapy versus gradual change has been overcome. Recent approaches to the transition focus on the economic crises and the necessary restructuring process for the adaptation to the world market sy...

The transitional economies share common, serious problems in their public sector housing stocks, including poor condition and repair, and low rents which neither cover the maintenance and managementcosts, nor reflect the market exchange value of the houses. The paper begins by looking at the general background of rental policy and alternative appro...

The fall of socialism in 1989–1990 led to the end of the East European housing model, which was based on the limitation of property rights, extensive central planning and politically determined allocation of subsidies. This paper aims to present a clear picture of the current housing situation through a reliable information system. The major observ...

Poor maintenance, low rents, and high levels of occupants’ dissatisfaction with their housing have been hallmarks of state‐rental housing in Hungary and other countries in Eastern Europe. The introduction of private management has been touted as an efficient way to improve services and increase tenant satisfaction, thereby paving the way for higher...

Inner‐city areas of Budapest have been almost exclusively dominated by public (state‐owned) rental housing since 1952 when massive nationalisation turned private rentals into state rentals. The last four decades have shown a slow but gradual deterioration of this housing stock (except for the CBD area) due to the problems of rent policy, bureaucrat...

Without Abstract

Our analysis within the framework of the Housing Indicators Program clarified two special but very important uses of housing indicators in PCPEs. First housing indicators constitute new tools for local governments. The indicators can be applied to build up local housing policy parallel with the increase in local-level decisionmaking power. Second,...

This collection of studies, both Eastern and Western in perspective, outlines the most recent housing reforms in the former Eastern Bloc and relates them to the political and economic transformation of these countries.

This paper is concerned with housing mobility within the socialist housing system in Hungary. The statementsof the filtering theory have to be reformulated in the context of East European countries. On the basis of our empirical findings-acquired from three vacancychain surveys-it seems justified to reject the two main hypotheses concerning the rol...