trying to sell 116 sqm apt in district 7 in Budapest , cant find an estate agent


Bob, is it a new build or a classic apartment? Street or Courtyard facing? Which floor? Is there an elevator? What condition is the outside (in the case of a classic building)?

All these things greatly affect the price. The average on the link I posted above was €1k sq.m for Dis 7, but Classic buildings will be less.
 


the elevator is not working , its on the 2nd floor , its facing the street , its a 3 bed ,however , it is impecibally well refurbished and furnished , it is most definatly a luxury appartment albeit not in that great of a location , it is 5 mins walk from the nearest metro stop , i was getting 800 a month from american students from august 2006 - july 2007 and 900 a month from august 2007 - may 2008 , i have not had a tennant since then but i believe this is down to my managment company being lazy , thier called ce estate managment company
 
ok, sounds like a Classic building, which means its as much about the entire building (the external facade, internal stairs/elevator etc) as it is about the internal individual apartments. That won't help your cause to sell. A lot of those buildings need financing to renovate the outside.

I still think you are better off renting; otherwise the only way to shift it is to take a hit on the price. If €1k per sq.m is the avg for Dis 7, a Classic building will be less; perhaps if the quality of the apartment is as you say, it might hold up to that price, but it doesn't sound like you renovated it, just furnished it well.

One final point, you mention the 800 p.m doesn't cover the repayments, suggesting you borrowed the vast majority of the 120k buying cost; in that case, you can't really put your 'borrowed' money to much better use without even more cost, so again, I suggest sitting it out for a few years.

I know we're all being a bit negative Bob, but unfortunately thats the marketplace in most of these countries at the moment. Hungary is actually lucky in that property prices are not dropping like in other countries, with average (REALISTIC) prices actually holding firm or rising yoy by 2-3%, which of course is still less than inflation. Still its better than -30% from peak as we have here.
as budapest mentioned above the cost sq.m of property in Budapest is still very low by comparison to anywhere else in the EU.

Like the rest of us, my advice is to think long term. Being a speculator was never going to pay dividends when buying at the top of the market in the past few years. Places like Dubai are a similar story, but on a worse scale. If you are in those markets, in stockbroking terms, they are a 'Hold'.

Heres a few links:
Property site (like daft)



Economic news etc:
http://www.portfolio.hu/en/

hungarian version of the CSO (contains residential prices increases for past few years):
[broken link removed]
 
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ive heard it said a few times that property never looses value , some people just pay too much for it the 1st day , i paid 120 k for my appartment in december 2005 , i subsequently spent a further 12k on duties and fees to solicitors and the agency in ireland i bought through , 28 k renovating it and a further 15 k furnishing it , if you claim that property has being appreciating to the tune of around 3% per anum is correct but my appartment is still barely worth 120 k , its obvious that i paid at least 40 k too much for it , yet on the plane over i spoke to people who were paying 175 k for appartments off plan , i guess i wasnt the only fool who was ridden silly
 

175k is a lot alright to get a classic apartment into rentable condition.

maybe 3 months after I first purchased (a new-build in dis 6 for 400k HUF or about €1550 sq.m, not cheap either unfortunately, and lucky if I got that today), my brother called to say himself and his friends were at an open-night offering apartments in Dis 9 for 2,200 sq.m, and what did I think. 2 mins into the conversation and he had ran a mile, but others jumped in with both feet.

Its all about >independant< research. For example, that link to the Hungarian CSO above is very accurate economic data. they say Buda property increased about 2-3% each of the past few years. Its still far less than inflation, and varies wildly on location and condition.

Give the economic reform strategy a few years to work; GDP deficit is already reducing, and it appears to be working. It'd be nice to see some sort of benchmark for adopting the Euro, maybe about 5-6 years away I'd say
 


did you buy from a crowd in west waterford? sounds a lot like my own dealings
 
did you buy from a crowd in west waterford? sounds a lot like my own dealings

i bought through power properties in waterford who had an associate in budapest and while i obviously paid too much , i found the agency to be very good
 
same as myself, about 30k too much i paid, best of luck with the sale

when i say i found them very good , i mean very professional , courteous and hassle free , that doesnt mean they dont know how to charge through the nose of course
 
i sent an email to A1 real estate the a few days ago and recieved a call from them today , guy was speaking to had limited english but i emphasised that i felt thier commision rate of 4.8% + vat was excessivly high and that i would only pay 4% incl vat , hungarians are not as flexible as us irish but he told me he would get back to me early next week on that one
anyways what i really wanted to know was if anyone has any experience with this agency