House Hunting in Hungary: A Modern Mash-up for $895,000

A Four-Bedroom House With a Grassy Roof

$895,000 (270 MILLION HUNGARIAN FORINTS)

This three-story, 3,531-square-foot house is in the hilly Adyliget neighborhood, west of the Danube River, in Budapest, the capital city of Hungary.

Built in 1999 on a fifth of an acre and partially renovated in 2018, the striking four-bedroom house was designed by the Hungarian architects Janos Monus, Zsuzsa Szoke and Sandor Nagy in a contemporary style with a multitude of influences, including modernist, brutalist and Bauhaus.

“It’s quite hard to pinpoint the architectural style exactly, because there isn’t anything else like it,” said Chris Clarke, a director at Clarke & White Real Estate, which has the listing. “The house is very unique. It’s quite contemporary, but at the same time, it’s kind of very homey.”

The 3,531-square-foot house, built in 1999 and partially renovated in 2018, was built from raw concrete and stone, with steel and wood beams painted bright red. It has a partially open atrium with an artificial pond and glass terrace above.Credit…Courtesy of Clarke & White Real Estate Budapest

Built of raw concrete and stone, with steel and wood beams painted bright red, the house has a partially open atrium with an artificial pond and glass terrace above, as well as a grassy roof terrace. Huge sliding glass doors and strategically located window openings bring in natural light. The built-in furniture and shelving is affixed to hidden steel consoles attached to the building’s reinforced concrete structure, Mr. Clarke said.

The wood front door opens to a second-floor hall with a powder room, and a sliding door opens to the kitchen on the right. Straight ahead is a door to a staircase corridor bordering the open living and dining area. In the adjacent kitchen, an island with a glass countertop and sink has hanging shelving and an exhaust hood above. The island extends into a dining table on a raised platform. Sliding glass doors in the kitchen, dining area and living room open to the terrace and artificial pond. The living room, which has a wood-burning contemporary-style fireplace, parquet hard pine floors and built-in shelves, also opens to another small terrace.

The staircase ascends to the third floor, which has all three bedrooms. The main bedroom, with two en suite bathrooms and two walk-in closets with built-in shelves, opens to a Juliet balcony; an attached study opens to the glass terrace. The two additional bedrooms are on a long a corridor that also opens to the glass terrace. Each bedroom has an en suite bath and walk-in closet, along with a built-in platform bed and desk area. They also open to Juliet balconies.

From the glass terrace, stairs ascend to a grassed roof deck with an automatic irrigation system.

The home’s first floor has a fourth bedroom, which is attached to a glass-walled spa room with Jacuzzi, sauna and separate bathroom. It also has a three-car garage, storage room and laundry.

The house sits on a landscaped, fenced lot in Adyliget, northwest of Budapest’s city center in hilly District 2. The neighborhood is residential, though there are shopping centers nearby, along with parks and international schools, Mr. Clarke said. It borders the Buda Landscape Protection Area, with tens of thousands of acres of protected land. Adyliget has good public transportation, Mr. Clarke said. Budapest’s city center, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, can be reached in 20 minutes by car, depending on traffic. Budapest Ferenc Liszt International Airport is about 50 minutes away.

Market Overview

Hungary, the landlocked Central European nation of hills and plains with about 10 million residents, saw home prices double in the decade between 2010 and the first quarter of 2021, with only two other European Union countries (Estonia and Luxembourg) outpacing it in that growth, according to Eurostat, using data from the Hungarian Central Statistical Office.

“In Budapest, it was an even bigger increase,” said Gabor Borbely, director and head of business development and research at the CBRE brokerage, in Budapest. “That’s coming, obviously, from a much lower basis, so Hungary is among the cheapest markets in the European Union. If you compare Budapest to Prague or Warsaw — which are similar size, similar purchase power, similar geography — the residential prices are still much lower. In some instances, it’s 40 to 50 percent cheaper to buy in Budapest than in Prague.”

The global pandemic, which is currently largely under control in Hungary after peaking in late 2020 and again this past spring, halted that decade-long price surge in Budapest. Home prices fell a couple of percentage points in 2020 before rebounding earlier this year to their 2019 levels, Mr. Borbely said.

Budapest’s residential market was hit harder by the pandemic than the rest of Hungary, with international buyers disappearing and domestic buyers moving away. As in other countries, many residents decided to buy homes in regions outside of the capital, particularly in resort areas, brokers said.

“Potential buyers are increasingly open to considering properties in the outskirts of bigger cities or those located in the country,” said Karoly Benedikt, the head of marketing, public relations and analysis at Budapest-based agency Duna House.

The changes in consumer behavior have driven up home prices by 10 to 20 percent in some areas outside of Budapest, and even more at Lake Balaton, a 48-mile-long freshwater lake about 50 miles west of Budapest, Mr. Borbely said: “Definitely, the gap between the capital city and the regional markets is narrowing, which is something really unique we haven’t seen for the last two decades.”

In Budapest, where the effects of international tourism are most pronounced with city-center attractions and Danube river cruises, more than 1,000 properties that were formerly used as short-term rentals are currently on the market, Mr. Clarke said. Other investment properties have converted to long-term rentals, and rents have dropped precipitously, he said.

However, despite international travel restrictions still in place, inquiries from foreign investors have picked up recently, Mr. Clarke said: “Those had stopped, but the last three or four weeks, we’ve had a lot more inquiries, so it seems people are gearing up to start buying again.”

Mr. Borbely, using U.S. dollars for reference, said the average apartment price in Budapest is about $2,500 a square meter ($232 a square foot), and about $3,500 a square meter ($325 a square foot) for a newly built apartment.

“And the prime end of the market, which is up in the hills, next to the castle, or downtown facing the river, I would say it’s around $6,500 a square meter” ($605 a square foot), he said.

Who Buys in Budapest

Most foreigners who buy homes in Budapest do so as an investment, though some purchase for retirement purposes, said Bela Varga, a real estate lawyer whose law office provides realtor services and who also leads the supervisory board of Duna House’s Property Investment Fund.

“Also, there are Hungarians living abroad, for instance in Romania, Slovakia or the United Kingdom, who seek property in Hungary,” Mr. Varga said.

Many investors are attracted by the fact that Hungary’s capital-gains tax of 15 percent goes to zero after the property is held for five years, he said.

Foreigners typically gravitate to Budapest’s central districts, such as the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Eighth districts on the Pest side of the river, or the First, Second, Third or 12th districts on the Buda side, Mr. Varga said.

Most foreign buyers in Hungary come from European Union countries, such as Germany, Austria, Ireland, Spain, Italy, Romania, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, brokers said. Others have traditionally come from Britain, as well as the United States, Canada and, more recently, South Africa, Mr. Clarke said.

Mr. Borbely said he has had many foreign buyers come from Russia and Israel, “and lately, we’ve had more interest from the Far East, mostly China.”

Buying Basics

There are no buying restrictions on citizens from countries in the European Union, nor on buyers from Iceland, Lichtenstein, Norway and Switzerland, Mr. Varga said. All other foreigners must obtain a permit, which generally takes about a month and costs about $165, he said.

Most foreign buyers hire a Hungarian lawyer, with the typical fee being 1 percent of the purchase price. There is also a stamp duty of 4 percent and a nominal land registry fee, brokers said.

Mr. Clarke recommended doing a property survey, which typically only costs $100 to $200. A survey can catch issues — such as a chimney that needs relining — that won’t typically surface in the sales negotiation, he said.

Most foreigners pay in cash, as mortgages aren’t readily available to foreign buyers, brokers said.

Websites

• Budapest tourism: budapestinfo.hu

• Visit Hungary: visithungary.com

• Hungarian government: abouthungary.hu

Languages and Currency

Hungarian; Hungarian forint (1 forint = $0.003)

Taxes and Fees

There is no annual property tax on this home.

Contact

Chris Clarke, Clarke & White Real Estate, 011-36-70-391-8370, clarkeandwhite.com

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