My posts are not only about people I know. I view approximately 30 properties per month in Budapest. I have contacts throughout the property industry, who I keep in contact with on a regular basis. My posts are absolutely not based on just my friends' experiences. This is yet another inaccurate assumption that you've made. I view properties mainly in V, VI, I, XIII, IX, XI, VII.
My point of view does actually concur with most people I speak to and with all of the major management companies I've spoken to. I've been a property renovator and investor since shortly after I graduated from university in 1999. I believe you graduated only last year. I started researching the Bp market in 2001 but did not purchase in District V until 2006, when I noticed that new opportunities were available there. Smaller foreign investors had already stopped investing in this market by 2004. Downtown Budapest is totally different in 2006/2007 and has an entirely new set up of potentials and pitfalls, but now with better opportunities. Some sellers at least are being more realistic about their price expectations. There is absolutely not an oversupply of quality properties at lower prices. The opposite is true. There is only an oversupply of overpriced properties or apartments with some major problem.
Looking at general statistics doesn't work so well in Bp but the reality is that District I prices have fallen in recent years, while District V hasn't, even though it was the over-heated market during the early years of this decade. Since the end of the boom here, the District I average has fallen by 4.9%, while District V fell but then recovered to the same level as before. Several estate agents have informed me that the smaller apartment market in downtown Pest is almost purely taken up by local buyers - renovated apartments on good streets, approx. 15M HUF. My own research also confirms this. Try finding a good renovated apartment for 300,000HUF/sqm anywhere in the city centre.
My reason for concentrating my investments on the downtown area is that I understand this market and the type of tenants who want to rent here. Lower-grade (below middle-management level) positions are plentiful here and employees of companies such as IBM, Nokia, etc. tend to want to live as centrally as possible in the cultural and social centre of the city. I don't rule out District I. There are good opportunities there also and prices are quite repressed at the minute. However, V is more popular from a rental perspective and offers better opportunities in the current market.
In relation to the original question about Fiath Haz, the figures simply don't add up, so I wouldn't invest in a project like this.
The St. Stephen's Green/Dalkey comparison is a good one. The price per square metre and rentability of a property on St. Stephen's Green is much higher than the average Dalkey price, despite it being an affluent suburb and Stephen's Green being an expensive and noisy part of the city centre with traffic problems.
Your suggestion that the 'new city centre' will be where people want to live is quite outlandish and seems to be your own opinion rather than based on any research. Of course developers and those interested in selling new property here will suggest this but few others. You cannot move a city centre that easily. Budapest already has one of the most fantastic downtown areas in Europe. Furthermore, trying to sell a property close to the Danube in District XIII at a reasonable profit is likely to be much more difficult in years to come. This area will have thousands of overpriced, standard new-build apartments, many of which have been purchased by foreign investors. Space is not limited here and buyers are likely to favour brand new developments. In my opinion, only a few higher-end developments (e.g. Prestige Towers) are likely to remain desirable in the long term.
In contrast, the number of investors who purchased the right apartments at the right price in central Pest is probably quite limited. Many invested here, but as far as I can see, only a minority were able to do it successfully. Dealing with private sellers or with local rather than international agents makes a huge difference in terms of price and the quality of the property.
If the standard-quality modern apartments of the Budapest suburbs were to continue to be worth more than the prestigious neo-classical and secessionist downtown property, then Budapest would be an absolute exception on the European property stage.
I appreciate your point of view, so please don't assume that I just post my own opinions. Everything I post comes from researching this market and from my experience and research in various markets across Europe. We both want to experience success in the Bp market, so please accept that people can have different valid perspectives about the same thing. There is much more to be gained from a sharing of knowledge from different sources than from antagonism.
In a separate matter, I'd appreciate if you could remove the offensive statements you made near the start of a post you made yesterday.