Purchasing property in Budapest: property company "Capital Eyes International"?

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map170 said:
Sorry, can you explain what is the west Balkan?
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It's an indoor and outdoor club, quite industrial. I went there to see the Zion Train concert on Monday, but the road from behind the Corvin cinema is now closed for construction. In the West Balkan they distributed flyers with the new road, so I guess the Corvin works has really take off.
PS> If you are in BP, you should definitely check out the place. Rough decor but cool people & music.
 
UrbanDev, what are your own views on the Corvin development? Too ambitious, or do you think it has potential?
 
I have started a new thread with this topic as i was digressing from the original question.
 
You could try centralhomehungary.com. They are a Hungarian agency with a big customer base in NI - run by two very reliable Israeli guys. They primarily sell 'classic' apartments but have some developments also. At least you are buying at Hungarian prices since they mostly sell (90%) to the locals. They can also arrange renovations etc. I just think the classic apartments are more of a real market - nice and spacious for the most part - if a bit more expensive to run. Most of the new developments are like shoeboxes with small cramped rooms and low ceilings. If you were buying in downtown Paris would you buy in a new development ? In the long run the locals will want to live in classic buildings and they are the long term market. One of the partners is called Avi Hedvat - he deals with many northern investors and they have a guy on the ground in Belfast Bill Donnan. I bought renovated and sold within a three year period and came out of it ahead.

Good luck with the search
 
This article suggests that the Irish wing of this company has gone into liquidation:
[broken link removed]

Does anyone have any more information about this?
 
A friend working at an Irish insolvency office told me that Capital Eyes Holdings had financial problems for the last 2 years, and that a court decision was expected for half October.
So this news does not come as a surprise.

Especially not if you know their way of working.
I was in contact last year with Capital Eyes Dublin, as they did the sales for Andrassy Palace. They sent me some documentation and arranged a meeting with the CE Hungary staff. Big was my surprise to hear a BP agent of Capital Eyes tell me that Andrassy Palace had a lot of problems getting the needed permissions, that it was not sure if the project would happen, that there were many construction difficulties and that there were anyhow much better investments in Budapest...

The reason for this "honest revelation" was that the Andrassy Palace developer hired other agencies to sell their project, so I guess Capital Eyes Hungary got upset...
To my surprise, a few months later I received a newsletter from Capital Eyes, praising "Andrassy Palace" as a N°1 investment oppurtunity...
Apparently they solved their problems with the developer, and the fact that they were back in bussiness turned a "problem project" again in a "top investment".
http://www.capital-eyes.com/andrassy_palace.php

PS: An architect working in the BP city commission told me this summer that there was still no construction permission for the roof.
When I passed by a few weeks ago, the construction works had not yet been started (in the original documentation I received, hand-over for this project was september 2007 [broken link removed]- so they better hurry...)
 
budapest said:
This article suggests that the Irish wing of this company has gone into liquidation:
[broken link removed]

Does anyone have any more information about this?
Click to expand...

not just the Irish wing:

It is understood that a number of other companies in the group are in the process of being wound up...
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A friend who also has used Capital eyes passed this email from one of the directors of Capital eyes Hungary ...... it seems highly relevant.

"Capital Eyes Holdings has not been trading since 2006. For over one year the
company has not had any offices, staff or operations of any kind in Ireland.
All clients of the Irish office were informed in writing in September 2006
that the Irish office was closing and their property investments would be
managed from the Capital Eyes office in Budapest. Recently the Irish
directors started the formal wind-down of the Irish business in the form of
a liquidation. It was the notification of this liquidation process that
prompted the journalist in Ireland to write this article. The facts of the
matter are:

1. Capital Eyes Holdings is an Irish company and does not own any other
companies or operations outside of Ireland, including the Hungarian office.

2. Capital Eyes Hungary KFT is a Hungarian company operating independently
of any other company outside of Hungary since it´s inception 4 years ago.

Capital Eyes is a very successful business and has an extremely good
reputation across Europe. We have staff of over 40 people, and have
successfully doubled our business activities since the same time last year.

Several statements in the Sunday Business Post article are incorrect and we
shall make necessary arrangements to have a correction statement posted. We
actually do not have businesses in Turkey, Romania and Bulgaria. These are
markets we are planning on launching soon, but you will see from our website
that they are not launched yet. We are not planning on closing down any of
our successful businesses."
 
This is what I had assumed, MaxIII, but was wondering if there was more to it after reading the SB Post article.
 
As regards map170 questions re the corvin project, I have just returned from a trip to budapest and i viewd the corvin area in district 8, this is massive totaling 55 acres with an underground station at each end of it and minutes from city centre. The first office block is almost complete as is the first residential block. The shopping centre is been taking over by a french company. The developers are local company Futureal who have a very large property portfolio in Hungary site : www.futureal.hu I am considering purchasing a 2 bed in the 3rd phase. would appreciate your comments, the project site is www.corvinpromenade.com
 
I think it's a good the idea to wait for phase III. Like this you see the finishings of the previous phases 'for real' and you'll get a good indication of the rental potential.
 
The problem with the corvin is that phase 1 and 2 is sold out and phase 3 is 75% sold, the locals seem to be buying alot here. Phase 4 is the new year, maybe I should wait till then
 
prospect said:
The problem with the corvin is that phase 1 and 2 is sold out and phase 3 is 75% sold, the locals seem to be buying alot here. Phase 4 is the new year, maybe I should wait till then
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I had a look at the Corvin project map, and I find it very hard to say which will the best builldings. Problem is that Corvin is a kinda 'reversed ghetto' (new living center in rather bad neighbourhood).
My advice would be: wait a little longer & see. The real estate market in BP is flatter than flat at this moment, so there's no need to hurry.
There's a good chance that a part of the appartments will bounce back in the market near hand-over time (for catalogue price).

PS: One month ago I received a mail from Dezsö (aka Hungary), who is a REAL real estate expert in BP. I think he has a very good point if he says that foreign investors are not the best placed persons to discuss where & when a development/quarter will boom...

I saw you and Brendan (aka Budapest, ud) were talking about Budapest again on AAM

I am very surprised when foreigners like you both are talking about Budapest where locations/streets/areas/districts would be fixed. To be honest, 10 years nobody thought that district 13 and 9 would be developed because both district were industrial area. What has happened? 1000s of people moved to these districts. Budapest is developing and new locations will be available in different districts.

Do you know how Castrum looked like 10 years ago? Do you know who will like the area around Marina Part/Prestige 10 years later? Probably not. I think Karoly Kert will be also a nice area and Hungarians will like living there. As an investment is a different issue. Since Brendan and foreigners in general focus on foreign tenants, which is a wrong way to evaluate market potentials, they might be right. I mean students probably will rent in district 6/7/8/9 close to Universities. But Hungarian tenants and foreigners who work out of City centre they are happy to rent apartments quite far from the City Centre.

WestEnd/Mammut/Arkad (shopping centres) are good examples how Budapest has changed. These 3 areas were very cheap and bad industrial parts of the City. And how about now?
...

With respect, “city centre” is not a good term to use for new areas. These parts of the City will be small islands in the districts only where people are/will be happy to live.

Do not forget where you live now is an industrial district with bad reputation! A few years ago investors were told: Do not touch this area. And those who decided to invest into DunaPest 5 years ago they earned nice money while others lost who invested into downtown...
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UrbanDev, I agree that, generally speaking, the Budapest market is flat at the minute and that investors shouldn't rush into anything they're unsure of - particularly in huge developments such as the Corvin project, where so many unknown variables are in play. However, as I've stated before, Bp is an incredibly complex market and opportunities are available, which are made much more apparent from living here. I've managed to purchase properties over the last few years (in a 'flat' market), which continue to do well and appreciate according to local valuations, but at the same time, I've come across many 'investors', who have lost money by purchasing the wrong properties at the wrong time - often in very similar locations!

(By the way, I don't totally understand the language used and most of the points made in the email that you quoted, or indeed its context in relation to this post.)
 
I'm sure you still can do excellent business in BP. A friend told me his mother sold an appartment 2 years ago for 9M huf, while it was sold recently for over 30M huf (I know the appartment & I don't understand how someone in the world could have let it go for such low price...)
If you fall on such affairs :cool:

I posted an extract of Dezsös mail because I believe he's right that it's hard for foreigners to tell what locals want.
I think more local insiders on aam could be quite helpful for some people.
On the architecture site skyscrapercity.com, there are plenty of local insiders and it's amazing how they are aware of future projects, decisions...

On topic: I don't know what happens, but within 1 week I got 3 phonecalls from BP agencies... getting back with info on developments I requested in... October 2006 ;-)

BTW - I'm in Berlin for the moment - also a quite 'difficult market' to get :confused:
 
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