Hungarian Central Statistical Office (HCSO)

National Accounts Department – Consumer Price Statistics Section

Keleti Károly Str. 5-7 1024 Budapest HUNGARY

The House price index (HPI) is a quarterly indicator that measures the changes in the dwellings transaction prices that households acquire on the market. Prices include land value.

The data on the HPI is provided in the form of an overall index number comprising two sub-indices: purchases of newly built dwellings and purchases of existing dwellings.

The data is based on harmonised definitions and concepts described in the OOH Technical Manual.

HPIs give comparable measures for changes in the prices and turnover of dwellings. They are calculated according to a harmonised approach and a single set of definitions.

Index numbers, weights and growth rates are made available at the level of detail established by the Owner-occupied Housing Commission Regulation (EU) No 2023/1470.

H.1. Purchases of dwellings
H.1.1. Purchases of newly built dwellings
H.1.2. Purchases of existing dwellings

ESA 2010 sector S.14 (Household sector).

The HPI covers all transactions of dwellings made by households regardless of its final use. This index covers not only the transactions that are new to the household sector (purchasing of new dwellings) but also all that are traded between households (purchases of existing dwellings).

Index figures for the purchases of newly built and existing dwellings are compiled on the basis of full transaction prices, which are collected through the use of an administrative data source (prices recorded in the contract). Transaction prices include the value of land.
The HPI is a chain-linked Laspeyres-type index. Data are presented in the form of index numbers (reference base year for Eurostat: 2015 = 100).
The weights for the two sub-indices are equal to the total value of dwelling transactions for newly built and existing dwellings, respectively.
The administrative data source contain all the transactions.

The basic statistical units of the HPI are dwellings owned or purchased by households.

The target population is the set of all transactions of dwellings purchased by households.

Data are available for the country as a whole.

The Hungarian HPI covers the whole country.

Data is available since 2007.

The index reference period is 2015=100.

Index figures with reference year 2015 are released. Weights are given as parts in 1000 and in national currency.

The compiled quarterly indices represent the whole calendar quarter.

Commission Regulation (EU) No 2023/1470 lays down detailed rules concerning harmonized indices of consumer prices, as regards establishing owner-occupied housing price indices.

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Regulation (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council, of 11 March 2009, on the transmission of data subject to statistical confidentiality to the Statistical Office of the European Communities.

All statistics collected and published by the HCSO are governed by the confidentiality provisions of the Act CLV of 2016 on Statistics, which specify that the HCSO cannot publish, or otherwise make available to any individual or organization, statistics that would enable the identification of data for any individual person or entity. There are two exceptions:

• Individual data on the activities of institutions, social organizations and state budget institutions performing activities of public interest may be made public without prior written consent of the data supplier if the respective data relates to the activities of public interest;
• Individual data without written consent of the data supplier may be transferred for statistical purposes only, to an international organization engaged in statistical activity, and in order to meet an international commitment, defined by rule of law.

The data are compiled under the terms of the Act CLV of 2016 On Statistics and the Act CXII of 2011 on the Right of Informational Self-Determination and on Freedom of Information.

Official statistical activity is regulated by Act CLV of 2016 on Official Statistics entered into force on 1 January 2017 and by Government Decree 184/2017. (VII. 5.) issued for the implementation of this law.

The English version of the text of Act CXII of 2011 is available on the Hungarian National Authority for Data Protection and Freedom of Information’s website.

The Hungarian National Assembly made the Act CLV of 2016 in order to ensure the HCSO’s independence and professionalism, and further strengthening of the confidence in official statistics. At the moment only available in Hungarian.

Legislation: https://www.ksh.hu/statistical_legislation

H.1.1. and H.1.2 indices are published in Hungary according to the 'Release calendar of intra-year, regular publications'.

http://www.ksh.hu/dissemination_calendar_tn?lang=en

H.1, H.1.1. and H.1.2. data are disseminated to all users through the Eurostat’s and HCSO's websites.

Quarterly for the indices.

No news releases are published relating to HPI.

Statistical reflections series: Home prices, home price indices – available on HCSO’s website (H.1.1. and H.1.2., 2015 =100 %)).

Besides, HCSO publishes a short analysis on HPI every quarter. The publication can be found on the HCSOs website in English and in Hungarian, too.

Table 'Stadat' No. 18.2.1.8 on HCSO’s website:
http://www.ksh.hu/stadat_files/lak/en/lak0036.html

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Not available.

There are some short methodological notes in the publications.

Metainformations are available on HCSO’s website:

http://www.ksh.hu/apps/meta.objektum?p_lang=EN&p_menu_id=110&p_ot_id=100&p_obj_id=BGBA

Quality commitment and quality concept are declared in the HCSO strategy available on the HCSO website.

The general quality assurance framework: Reports on the practice of revisions, with special attention to the delayed arrival of data and the subsequent need for more revisions. Metadata and statistical domain documentation are updated annually. All incoming data stocks, programs for data clearance and correction, all steps of data processing together with additional notes and explanations are stored in a central server of the office. An integrated process of data-transmission is developed so that incoming data are instantly checked and corrected on arrival. Methodological information is published together with all data publications.

The quality of the HPI index is reviewed using a framework based on the OOH technical manual and the European Statistical System (ESS) definition of quality.

The HPI responds the needs of all users interested in knowing the behaviour of prices in the house price market.

Not available.

The index covers the whole country and all new and existing housing transactions. 

The HPI is perceived to be accurate and to reflect well the overall behaviour of the housing market.

Total statistical population is observed therefore there is no sampling error.

Typing errors are corrected by outlier detection. Missing data are estimated by regression models.

Data are sent according to the EU regulation 2016/792 85 days after the end of the reference period (indices) and 165 days after the end of the reference year (weights).

There are no delays in the transmission of the data.

The HPI indices have no regional sub-indices.

The calculation of published data is in line with the Eurostat recommendations so indices are fully comparable across countries.

Time-series are fully comparable.

The OOHPI partly overlaps the scope of the HPI. However, both indices cover a different set of transactions.

Data is checked for internal consistency.

Three persons are working on HPI, the estimated full time equivalent of the staff working on HPI is 2 employees.

The main tasks undertaken to produce the HPI are: Processing incoming data-stocks - checks, corrections, imputation and regression calculations. The most time consuming tasks are checks and corrections. Only data transmission depend on the cooperation of a stakeholder outside the unit.

There are no costs for purchasing data.

HPI is revisable in Hungary. There is a strict revision policy. There is always a clear indication whether data are preliminary or final.

Data may be revised each quarter, in line with the publication schedule. All past data are considered officially final at the 3^rd quarter of the next year.

See below.

Indices and weights are compiled using administrative sources.

HPI weights are based on actual dwelling transaction values. The partition of the total HPI weight into newly built and existing dwellings is done using information available from the same source as used for prices.

Data are recorded and transmitted by the National Tax and Customs Authority.

Data are transmitted quarterly.

Data are recorded continuously by NAV (National Tax and Customs Administration) and transferred to HCSO quarterly. The data transfer contains settlement code, name of the street, type of property, date of sale, price and price estimates of stamp duty offices and floor area of homes.

Missing values’ rate is around 1% for most variables. Only floor area data have missing values in higher numbers (around 30% of all cases, mainly for one-family houses). From 2013 on data are transmitted with full address that makes checks and comparisons with other databases possible. Such combination of other statistical sources (Population Census, data on put to use permits) are used to identify newly built dwellings, to check and correct building characteristics.

See below. 

See below.

HPI is a Laspeyres-type price index.

HPI indices are aggregated using weights based on market transaction values.

Weights are annually revised. We use the weights of year t-1.

Weights are price updated to the fourth quarter of the year t-1.

Chaining is based on the fourth quarter of the previous year.

The indices for Purchases of newly built and existing dwellings are compiled applying the hedonic regression method. 

A log-linear specification is used in which the logarithm of price per square meter is the dependent variable. Major data used in this model are: floor area of the given dwelling, character of the building, specific geographical, administrative and income indicators of the given settlement (or district in Budapest.)

After the exclusion of outliers (see 18.4), based on repeated model estimation, changes in prices are broken down by composition effect and pure changes in prices. Because of the log linear method, the released price indices always result from the geometrical average of the given prices. However, the average prices are always arithmetical averages in publications.

Three years' data are pooled in model estimations (i.e. the current and two years before the current year).

The same method is applied for both new and old dwellings, in separate calculation procedures.

No SPAR method is used.

Hedonic method is combined with stratification by newly built and existing dwellings.

See below.

The price of the dwelling is the price in the sale contract. The ownership tax is payable within 60 days of the sale contract. Within this period, the data are used in the HPI for the quarter in which the sale contract was signed.

VAT is included in the price of newly built dwellings.

Taxes other than VAT are not included in the price of dwellings.

The HPI includes only transactions at market prices. Government subsidies are given to home-buyers and therefore included in market price.

The price of land is included in both prices and weights.

Housing cooperatives are covered in the HPI. Housing cooperatives in Hungary are more like condominiums, without limitations on ownership rights, therefore their market is part of the general housing market, without any difference in prices.

Non-market transactions are excluded from data transfer.

Multi-object transactions are separated in the original legal procedure and therefore included in the transacted database individually.

Fractional transactions  are not considered as it is uncertain if they are concluded at market prices.

After a raw completeness check outliers are detected by regression estimation method.

Data source covers all transactions made in the whole country.

No adjustments other than quality adjustment are applied to the HPI data.

No comment.