It's very difficult to predict what will happen with the Corvin area of District VIII. Neither is it obvious whether or not renters will want to live in this area in the same numbers as the investors´]
I think that is a valid point. Frankly I purchased a two bed apt in the project, but I have big doubts, because I have another flat in district IX and when I tried to let to expats, they were keen to avoid that district. They have a clear vision on which districts they are not "supposed" to rent or go. On the other hand there are very few places in Budapest, where you have shopping, leisure, underground and green area in one so close to the city centre. This is my hope.
If you surf on overseas property investment sites, you can see an impressing number of cheap real estate offers in Budapest. It's gonna be a tough learning process for many investors to find out why buying on the bottom of the market ends up to be an expensive joke: bad location, awful finishings and high expenses due to the little sense of communal propriety.
This WE I visited the new shopping mall Aréna Plaza. What looks great on first sight has all the defaults of nowadays Hungarian development. Everywhere you look a bit closer, the finishings are completely crap. At least 30% of the tiles are already broken, walls are coming down, pipes are leaking... and this 4 months after hand-over!
The crazy thing is that the development is at one hand still under construction (what is crazy as well), at the other hand already detoriating very fast.
When I checked on the net, I was glad that a few other 'observers' shared my opinion.
Let's face it, this wouldn't pass any decent health and safety or fire tests. This place shouldn't be open to the public without at least these 'glitches' clearly marked and cordened off.
Which raises the question of who or which authority thinks its OK to let the general public Beta Test a shoping centre whilst the developers continue to work on the product.
This just stinks of backhanders and payoffs. For non Hungarian speakers there are a few useful verbs just for this purpose like 'lekenyerezni' (sort of like 'greasing someone's palm') and 'mutyizni' (derives from a french term in card playing when two players secretly gang up on others to rip them off).
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Fact is: this is what nowadays development is about in Hungary: take the money and run - don't care about quality or safety.
Chances are big that the Corvin Promenade project will be the same story...