Another significant price increase on the tight land market
In 2022, the average price of agricultural land per hectare increased by 11 percent, a similar rate to previous years, exceeding the psychological limit of two million forints, but vines and orchards became much more expensive, according to Agrotax Kft's annual land market analysis.
On average, agricultural land is sold for over 2 million forints at 2.186 million forints (5,751.69 euros) per hectare, compared to 1.969 million forints (5,180.42 euros) last year. The highest average price was in Central Hungary at 2.8 million forints (7,366.37 euros) per hectare, but average prices of over 2 million forints (5,261.30 euros) were also recorded in the Great Plain and Central Transdanubia. In Northern Hungary, the average price was 1,683 million forints (4,427.71 euros), making this the cheapest region for agricultural land.
More than two-thirds of the transactions were closed with farmland with an area of 14,000 hectares. The second largest turnover, both in terms of size and number of transactions, was achieved with forest, followed by grassland and pasture, as well as orchards and vineyards.
The average price of arable land per hectare reached 2.33 million forints (6,130.02 euros), an increase of 11.1 percent compared to the previous year. Grassland was sold at an average price of 1.86 million forints (4,894.50 euros) per hectare, up 9.45 percent year-on-year, while forests sold for an average of 1.235 million forints (3,251.80 euros), up 10.6 percent year-on-year.
The increase was dramatic for orchards, with an average price of 3.965 million forints (10,437.37 euros) per hectare, 53 percent more than last year. The national average price per hectare for vines was 4.205 million forints (11,283.32 euros), an increase of 68 percent over the previous year, and even higher than for orchards.
Rental prices also increased, albeit to a lesser extent: last year, the average value of the forint per hectare of arable land was 86,564 forints (227.93 euros), 5.6 percent higher than the year before.
In the nineteen EU member states for which 2021 data are available, the price per hectare of farmland in 2021 ranged from a low of 3,661 euros on average in Croatia to an average of 47,290 euros in Luxembourg. In this Eurostat comparison, Hungary was ahead of 5 other EU countries in 2021.
