For a property like your's, one of the international agencies would probably be best - Duna House, Otthon Centrum, A1 Ingatlan or maybe Central Home. They all have .hu website addresses. 120,000 euro would appear to be too high. This would put it in the luxury category and buyers of luxury properties in this part of outer District VII are few and far between.
Most of this post seems to be your own opinion and not really propped up by fact. The apartment you bought was in very much a secondary location, which is not popular with locals, at a price, which locals would not have paid then or now. Had you researched the market first, you would probably not have lost money. Decent properties are still selling well, prices are some of the lowest in Europe, when compared with real income and many people have made money here, even since 2003. The rental market for high quality properties is strong, as you seem to be witnessing too.
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.
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]
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
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
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