The number of completed new homes in Hungary for which permits were issued declined 41pc from a year earlier in the second quarter of 2010, with the decline accelerating from a 26pc fall in Q1, the Central Statistics Office (KSH) said on Friday.

The number of building permits issued for homes fell 50pc yr/yr in the second quarter of 2010, falling more than the 30pc drop in the first quarter.

The number of completed new homes declined 34pc in the first half of the year from a year earlier to 9,000 and the number of building permits issued for homes dropped 41pc to 10,000 in the period.

The number of completed new homes in Hungary with permits issued dropped 11pc to 32,000 in 2009. The number yet rose 15-18pc in first two quarters of last year, but dropped 23-26pc in the following three quarters. The number of building permits issued for homes fell 35pc to 28,400, an 11-year low, in 2009.

Permits issued in the first half for the construction of residential buildings were for a total useful space of 948,500 square metres, 39.6pc less than a year earlier, KSH said.

The average area of completed homes for which permits were issued was 92.3 square metres, slightly larger than a year earlier. A little more than one-third were larger than a hundred square metres.

The number of construction permits issued for non-residential buildings fell 6.1pc from H1 2009 to 2,494 in the first half of 2010, KSH said. The number of permits issued for industrial buildings fell 14 to 393 and that for commercial use fell 28 to 167, while the number of permits for agricultural buildings rose 83 to 745. The useful space for which these construction permits were issued fell 8.5pc to 1.559m square metres, including a 55pc fall in the commercial area to 170,600 square metres.

The number of building permits issued for non-residential buildings fell 35.5pc to 5,214 and the useful area in the permits fell 26pc to 3.365m square metres last year.

Homes built by their future occupants fell 30.7pc yr/yr and accounted for 4,243 of the total completed in H1 2010. 4,007 of the homes completed in the first half were built to be sold, 41pc less than a year earlier. The number of homes built to be rented out soared, in contrast, from 140 in H1 2009 to 416 in H1 2010, with all the increase taking place in Budapest.

The number of new home building permits issued fell almost everywhere in the country in H1, except for a 0.9pc rise to 4,193 - almost half of the national total - in Budapest. New home building permits were down as much as 65.7pc in Western Transdanubia and dropped 63pc in Central Transdanubia but a 65.4pc drop was registered in the Great Plain too.