Budapest is the current hot spot for property investment, according to English-Arabic newspaper The National today.
Despite the plunge in London house prices since the Brexit referendum and the 15 percent devaluation of the pound sterling, the UK capital remains a very expensive place to buy a home. But there are other options in Europe that still have potential for capital appreciation as well as being a pleasant places to live.
Consider Budapest, The National writes, which was 12th out of 150 cities listed in Knight Frank’s first-quarter Global Residential Property Index, with prices up 15.5 percent in the first quarter year-on-year, second only to Stockholm in Europe.
Writer Peter Cooper tipped Budapest as a place to invest this time last year, and he's invested himself! House prices are about a tenth of comparable prime locations in London. Of course Budapest is not London, although it has an eclectic parliament building modelled on Westminster, the second-oldest underground line in Europe and stunning apartments in grand classical buildings from the late 19th century.
Sure, entertainment and shopping are not quite the West End. But we saw Evita in the Summer Festival and open-air Shakespeare from The Globe this year. There is classical music in beautiful auditoriums, jazz clubs and a lively nightlife. The cost of living is low, so Budapest is a magnet for the young and trendy and not just the super-rich.
As one architect pitching to redesign Peter's classic apartment said, the city has soul. He is more impressed by the Michelin-starred local restaurant scene and the architectural grandeur of what was once the immensely rich commercial capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Hungary is one of the European Union’s few low-tax destinations, with 15 percent personal and capital gains tax, albeit VAT is 29 per cent, refundable to foreign shoppers. Corporation tax is also low, as is the cost of labour, so multinationals are flocking to Hungary as the Vietnam of Europe.
In Budapest the rental laws are reckoned to be very favourable to landlords, not something that can be said everywhere these days, and yields of 5 to 6 percent are high by international standards.
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