How to invest

There are two main routes how to invest.

The first one is to buy a new property off-plan. There are really a lot of new projects with thousands of new properties being built in the inner city, and the standard is the kind that most foreign tenants are looking for. “Because of all the foreign students in Budapest, it is easy to find tenants looking for the high standard apartments the foreign investors offer”, says Itsik Ben Ezra, manager of the real estate company Central Home.

The second way to invest, and likely the most profitable option, is to invest in a property in low condition that you renovate. A lot of properties in Budapest are old and in bad condition, but with wonderful high ceilings, decorative, big windows and great opportunities to become irresistibly beautiful apartments. With more than 800 000 old Budapest apartments, 20 per cent of them still in need of renovation, there is plenty of choice to pick your dream home in the right location. “We usually recommend our clients to invest in a property that needs renovation, continues Ben Ezra, because the over all investment is lower by about 10% for the same rent income.”

One of many people who has fallen in love with the city and came back to invest in a property here, is Irish Geoff Hill, from Belfast. “From the word go, the people at Central Home could not have been more honest, decent, straight, efficient, knowledgeable and helpful well above and beyond the call of duty”, he says. And one of the things that makes Budapest such a popular target for foreign investors is, not only the good prices and the really center locations, it is also how easy it is to actually find a property and then go through with the procedure of buying and, if you want, renting it out. “They made the entire experience of buying and renting in Budapest as simple as going to the shops”, Geoff Hill continues.

Tenants
There are a lot of apartments for rent in Budapest, but only a few of them keep the standard that most foreign tenants are looking for. There are many businessmen and students of different kind that are looking for apartments and most of them require the same high standard. The location is also important, a property in the down-town and close to the big universities are always hot-spots for tenants in this category.

New projects makes Budapest more attractive
There are many big changes going on in Budapest to higher the standard of the city and make it more attractive and easy to navigate in. One big project going on is the extension of the new metro line, the M4. It will make it easier for people to go from the Pest side to parts of the Buda that was hard to reach before, without a car. This will definitely make new parts of Budapest more attractive and probably create a modernization of these parts with all what it means with new restaurants, offices, shops, popular cafés and not at least, many new jobs.

Another big project in the city is the new M0 road. It will ease the access to the city completing the section from Mill Hill to the city center.

Governmental project
A huge amount of money has been put in a new project to create new governmental buildings in the 6^th district behind the famous shopping center West-End. A team of local and Japanese architects has won the contract to design the new Government Quarter and will definitely effect the whole area. The plan is to make new modern buildings and also to create a big green park, something that has really been missing in this part of town. This green concept not just in terms of hanging gardens and leafy courtyards, will also make the value of the properties around it raise sharply. The Pest side of Budapest is famous for its beautiful building rather than green areas, it is simply more profitable building houses than parks, so a project like this is really rare. People that will definitely make a profit when it comes to real-estate are the ones investing in properties, and then especially roof-top properties, around what will become Budapest most modern park. The location of these properties is already excellent and with a green area like this as a neighbor, every property will be unique.

Property boom
Low operating costs, low corporate tax, a well-educated population and an ideal central European location have all contributed to make Hungary one of the most appealing countries to do business in. The fact that you are not only able to buy a brand new home, or renovate an old picturesque apartment whatever your demand is, in the optimal location for you, but also for a good price makes Budapest attractive as few of the other big capitals in Europe. Many foreign investors come back to buy even one or two more apartments, because they have realized all the advantages in investing in here. Cheap flights with low-cost airlines have made the access to Hungary easier and the numbers of tourists visiting the city has increased enormously the last few years. Since more and more people start to realize how easy it is, and all the benefits with investing in Budapest properties, prices will increase. But the real estate market in Budapest is, even though it is such an investment-friendly place, still fairly obscure, to many people, and today is a good time to make a good investment here for the future.

Rebecka Sternberg, Central Home