What are the next areas to develop

falul wrote:

Where do you reckon I should look for in order to find the new developing areas or the next undiscovered yet?

Why would someone who knows let you in on a good thing, for free, so you can compete with them and cut into their profits? Might as well ask a gold prospector where his next gold prospect is.

Who might answer: promoters seeing someone who is not fully aware of the local market and who might just be sold anything if wrapped around a lot of creative "promotion" or "investment" rhetoric. Real estate can be a contact sport, especially for flippers chasing new development and the "next undiscovered".

Better, and safer, for the smaller investor to just buy existing property with a solid history as a rental income earner. Such a property will work for you immediately upon purchase, as well as in the long term.

drveghistvan wrote:

In the latter case, buy a cheap apartment, invest into refurbishment, you can sell it very well as the real estate market is hot now due to social policy support.

This can be profitable only if you have very good relationship with companies (or preferably contractors) who perform the refurbishing. Otherwise, even if you speak perfect hungarian, you will have a hard time finding a reliable electrician, plumber, etc. If you go with a single company that does everything as a turnkey project, with their price you will not be able to sell the apartment and make a profit.

atomheart wrote:

Otherwise, even if you speak perfect hungarian, you will have a hard time finding a reliable electrician, plumber, etc.

Reliable and competent. If one wants just "anyone" to do such work, one can fine "anyone" here to do it. But then the bathroom plaster will start to fall off in a few years because the plumbing was done wrong and it is leaking.

I have an excellent general contractor. He organized most of the renovation for our own house (what I did not DIY), from putting on a new roof, full external replastering, all new electrical, etc. Even he had to juggle scheduling of competent tradesmen, and work could be put on hold for weeks waiting for them to become available (because I insisted on competent professionals, not just "anyone").

And all this was years ago, long before the current building boom.

Michel Silva wrote:

a nice old store underground with +/- 170m2 but is being difficult to find someone to rent it and no idea why

I will take a stab at some ideas:

Location : underground is not easily accessible and less desirable for many retail businesses, especially for those that benefit from window shoppers becoming random walk in foot traffic as with street level stores.

Size : That is actually pretty large. Many small businesses don't need something that big.

Price : Maybe your asking price per month is too high.

Possible solutions: You can do nothing about the location, but you can remodel and split up the space into a multi-store space, and rent to multiple tenants (added benefit is if you loose just one tenant, your income does not drop suddenly to zero). And look into if the price you are asking is reasonable for what you are offering, and if it may need to be lowered.

MOHCTEP wrote:

Side note on Balaton region. I know it has been popular with British expats and it might still be

Some British pockets, but mostly I still run into more Germans and Austrians.

MOHCTEP wrote:

, but I would suggest to visit Slovenia Julian Alps before making a purchase of a house near Balaton.

The Balaton and the Julian Alps are two entirely different types of geography, climate and culture. I would not say one can really compare them, but rather one makes lifestyle choices based on what each region has to offer.

atomheart wrote:

"Lending for non-citizens has ground to a halt. Huge opportunity for private banks that goes unfulfilled. Not sure why."

Few years ago, when banks were giving out loans easily, lots of people have burned themselves with mortgages they couldn't pay, there was a huge public outrage, banks have come under scrutiny and received a lot of negative sentiment, now they're more careful.

I read about it. Government made banks convert loans away from Swiss Frc etc. etc. Irish investors went bust in early 2000s before that. However one would expect banks to tighten requirements for down-payments and request strong collateral from everyone. Instead they don't land to non-citizens which is absurd. I wish some mortgage originator would come to HU market and gobble up all the foreign business. Let's just say if one to offer collateral property to the bank as security for the loan and the bank gave loan = 50% LTV and then slapped 7-8% APR which is not unheard of in HU what they would have is 99% security they turn profit . The banks would pray their borrowers would default on these loans, as it would be extremely profitable to auction off property that you own at 50% of the wholesale price. Not to mention foreign buyers have more disposable income thus present less risk.
There is still Russian Sberbank that makes 55% LTP loans, so not all is lost.

MOHCTEP wrote:

The banks would pray their borrowers would default on these loans, as it would be extremely profitable to auction off property that you own at 50% of the wholesale price. Not to mention foreign buyers have more disposable income thus present less risk.

With the recent volatility on the real estate market they'd also have to pray prices grow or stay high... Evicting people from their homes has also become more and more problematic and scandal-ridden, what the simple hungarian proletarian sees is the evil banks ripping them off and make huge profits. With citizens banks have more tools to recover their losses, e.g. they can have their client's employer automatically wire some of their salaries to the bank, can't be done with foreigners...

MOHCTEP wrote:

Not to mention foreign buyers have more disposable income thus present less risk.

Why don't they get loans in their home countries if they have a stable income?

MOHCTEP wrote:

I read about it. Government made banks convert loans away from Swiss Frc etc. etc. .

The important details to your banking theories are lost in the etc. etc.. There are a few political whipping boys here in Hungary. And for some time now Banks are one of them (others include, but are not limited to George Soros in particular, and Brussels in general). So banks do not quite have the political latitude to do what you suggest even if they wanted to.

Which is why it may be a good idea to follow Hungarian politics, if one is going to invest in Hungary, because politics and the ability to do business are linked in every country.