Would like to know more about Housing in centre location and Banking

Hello Imin! Welcome to Expat.com

Please note that a new thread has been created as from your post on the Budapest Forum so as to help you get better visibility and interactions.

Regards
Kenjee

Hello Imin,

I believe Budapest is safe for women, generally speaking and with the usual precautions for larger cities - i.e. don't go out alone in the dark side streets.

Otherwise here are the best neighborhoods as per the expat community: apartmentrentalsinbudapest.com/blog/which-is-the-best-neighborhood-to-live-in-budapest/

Good luck and let us know how you proceed!

Cheers,

Dez

I opened a bank account with OTP on Nador utca 6. They are currently renovating the branch, so are around the corner in a temporary office. The lady who helped open my account was called Katalin, she spoke fantastic English and was really helpful.
I didn't have a Hungarian address, but this was okay I used my UK address. Lots of signing of forms in Hungarian, but I think less than an hour and it was all done. They could not send the bank card to the UK but will keep it in the branch when it arrives. They set me up with a login and account numbers there and then, and I downloaded the OTP app on my ipad.
I was lucky and about 5 days later there was a message on my OTP app saying that the card had arrived and I was able to pick it up from the branch. The OTP app is great as you can check your balance etc. whereever you are.

Regarding areas, districts 5, 6 ,and 7 seem pretty good to me as they are where most tourists and people go out at night. So always seems to be lots of people walking around even late at night.

There are inner and outer parts of most districts and the inner parts have more interesting places close at hand, lots of people milling about and it is fairly safe as a city anyway. Some of the more touristy streets can be very noisy at night. I am happy in inner 10 by all of the universities, river and back of the market hall. Eating out and the bars are a little bit cheaper than right by the central bridges. Five was too expensive for me but I rented a place there and enjoyed the days but not the noisy nights.
People told me to avoid district 8 but I don't know it well enough to have an opinion.
I also opened a bank account same place as Gary and staff are very helpful but there are charges on current accounts.