Facts and misunderstandings about changes in house princes in Miskolc (2008-2017)

Abstract

In my paper, I present Miskolc's housing market price changes through a narrower cross-section, with specific features that may have influenced the county-level housing market processes more than average over the past decade, from the 2008 financial crisis to 2017. The change in Miskolc house prices was basically in line with the national trends regarding the period of price changes. However, the amplitude of the change was larger, meaning that by 2013 there was a greater decline than the national average and the average values ​​of rural big cities. The extent of the decline was negatively influenced by the suburban processes and the significant decrease in the population of Miskolc. The recovery from the economic and real estate crisis was much slower and slower, as a result of which only in 2017 the average prices of Miskolc homes reached the level of ten years earlier. However, the Miskolc housing market changed fundamentally by 2017, with new priorities emerging from the buyers' side. Another feature of the Miskolc housing market is that the price explosion did not occur in 2017-19, unlike the capital. Reasons for the stagnation of housing prices in Miskolc include lower income levels, changing temporal and spatial social embeddedness of government housing loan support and family benefits, as well as unemployment above the national average or the precarious financial situation of the middle classes. A further influencing factor may have been the so-called, also the different dynamics of the housing construction wave, whose territorial concentration and its broader spatial scope could put pressure on the housing market of Miskolc from the supply side.