real estate

Hi and welcome on board imds99!

Could you please be more explicit about your project?
Are you intending to open a business in Budapest?

Regards
Armand

HI,
Are you interested in buying ? For investment or for yourself to live in ?
regards,
ldi

Hi,

I'm not into the business, just know a lot of people here, and have some ideas :-)

It's a buyer's market waiting to happen.
A lot of people can not afford the homes they live in (Swiss frank denominated mortgages with a near 100% currency exchange rate hike. Just wait for autumn for utility costs to rise!), but they also have nowhere else to go and no other possession of significant value.
Foreclosures are a touchy political subject, it's not a strong driving force for people to sell. Even those who realize they must move are pricing their homes at inflated prices.
Very few people interested in buying at all due to these high prices, the expected price drops when foreclosures do start en mass, lack of savings, high interest rates, and uncertainty of employment.

Rental apartments are rare, and mostly arranged under the table, resulting in all kinds of inconveniences and lack of legal protection.
There is a definite market opening for professionally run apartment rental, as long as the price is competitive with the black/gray market.

The construction industry is starving for orders, so if you have development in mind, you are in a great negotiating position.

Inside Budapest is a jungle. Prices are higher, but sudivision is denser, so you can start out small to get your feet wet.

There's a growing "ring" of suburbanization surrounding Budapest, with the pre-existing settlements in its way trying to maintain their identity.
There are always single houses inherited by squandering heirs in lucky locations*.
And there are green pastures that could become the next fashionable gated community.
And everything in between.

Then there are "other towns", which are nice, prices are lower, but so is demand. Ex-mining or industry towns especially in the east like Miskolc or Ozd are quite scary, probably a gold mine to the brave.

And then there is the real countryside, which is kind of hopeless in the small, but the prices are so low you might be able to raise enough capital to buy a whole village and turn it into a crime-free retreat zone if you pick the right theme.
Check out Galgaheviz, the eco-bio-village for example, or Krisna-valley!

*: we have our eyes in a house like that in our village, but lack the capital: It's right in the new commercial center beside the green grocers, bakery and butcher's, begging to be bought and re-modeled into a small shop and/or cafe. If you buy it, my wife will rent it from you and run the shop...

szocske wrote:

...but the prices are so low you might be able to raise enough capital to buy a whole village and turn it into a crime-free retreat zone if you pick the right theme.

Hm. Sounds just a little bit neocolonialist.

@imds99:

Hi, I'm an american living in Budapest for the last 12yrs or so, and I have my own real estate company and agency, so I think I might have a pretty good understanding of the market here. 
I'd be happy to help, if you could elaborate on what exactly you have in mind.

Regards,

Chris

szocske wrote:

And then there is the real countryside, which is kind of hopeless in the small, but the prices are so low you might be able to raise enough capital to buy a whole village and turn it into a crime-free retreat zone if you pick the right theme.
Check out Galgaheviz, the eco-bio-village for example, or Krisna-valley!

I know where there are several neighbouring houses for sale in a village near the Balaton... there are even a few German and UK expats living there!!

If someone has the captial it would be a good place to create some kind of self-sustaining organic/bio village retreat as the crop ground is mostly pesticite free for years and very fertile, the village even has orchards, grape hills and a forest...

Zabz wrote:

I know where there are several neighbouring houses for sale in a village near the Balaton... there are even a few German and UK expats living there!!

This is true of many villages around the Balaton, in particular the north shore, and especially regarding German (and Austrian) expats.

I, for instance, live in such a village myself.