TOP 50 REAL ESTATE BUSINESSES EXECUTIVES 2026

The Top Real Estate Executives magazine is a special annual publication of the Budapest Business Journal. The magazine presents the profiles of the most influential real estate executives working in the Hungarian economy. It puts a human face on the local development market, focusing on leading personalities’ profiles and outstanding achievements. We also look at incentives and tax breaks for construction, and examine how the Hungarian market is developing, among other things. The selection is unashamedly subjective, having been made by the editorial team of the Book of Lists and the BBJ, and draws on our 30-year-history of providing unparalleled business news and analysis. The readership of Top Real Estate Executives mirrors much of that of the BBJ, including many of the country’s leading business executives, diplomats and decision makers.

A comprehensive overview of the trends shaping the industry, this resource also includes a helpful listing of real estate services for expatriates and local executives, as well as biographies of many of the outstanding professionals active in the Hungarian market today. These biographies are at the heart of the publication, which is a listing (not a ranking) of some of the leading real estate personalities, a selection based on our 33-year history of producing the Budapest Business Journal and the Book of Lists, and the accumulated knowledge of our management, editors, journalists, and sales executives.

This year, our real estate executives reflect on the likely impact of the new government, the effects of the conflict in Iran and the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz, and the continued war in Ukraine, which sectors are on the rise and fall in 2026, what is required to bring back significant international investment, and whether the Home Start program can bring a step-change to the residential market and accelerate home building? We also ask them what is missing from Budapest’s urban landscape (lots of talk here about making more of the river), and which projects they are most proud of.

The best-performing sectors are clearly Industrial and Logistics, alongside Hotel, Residential and Retail (especially in the form of countryside strip malls). There is a hope, if not yet an expectation, that the new government may abandon the Fidesz-era “Plaza Stop” law, and open up opportunities in Budapest and elsewhere for shopping center development.

But Office, once almost written off (remember all those predictions that “the office is dead”?), is also making something of a recovery from its post-COVID slump, provided projects are well located, well connected, and fully ESG-compliant. There is, however, a growing divide between older, non-compliant buildings and prime projects, evident in a widening gap in vacancy rates and a rising number of schemes to renovate, reposition, or convert.