hi guys
 

Hi guys just joined the fourum been looking on as a guest for the last few days looks really good,, i been thinking about buying a cuple of houses in hungary to do up and sell on or rent out as a bit of a project for me and my freind and was wondering weres the best place to open the company in the uk or in hungary ? Has anyone else on the site done this ? This is new to me I am starting from scratch so any tips or advice whuld be more than welcome thanks a lot steak :thumbup:

Re: hi guys
 

I would try to avoid starting a company in Hungary if at all possible as red tape is a nightmare here. I think you need to start by having a very good look at the housing market to judge the added value of renovation work. You have to bear in mind that incomes are low here so the labour aspect of getting a house renovated is relatively cheap. You could buy tatty flats in nice buildings in Budapest and revamp them then sell or rent.

Re: hi guys
 

Thanks for the advice we like the idear of houses in the country we was looking at somagy 20km from lake ballaton is this a nice area? , and do I need to open a company atall or can I just crack on sorry if my questions seem abit daft but its all new to me please have paitence with my questions and spelling lol ,, are materials cheep aswell as labour? and lastley do what do people think about buying to renovate to sell or rent is it a worthwhile venture ? What problems is ther ? is ther anything I shuld be aware of ? Thanks again steak

Re: hi guys
 

Okay, been out for the night and for the benefit of the palinka thread on the forum, I have been sampling the various types - the things I do for this forum. So bare with me, I will try to write sense but no guarantees.

Somogy, wouldn't touch most of it with a barge pole, but that's my personal opinion - there are some exceptions but don't have the time to detail them all at the moment apart from saying, lakeside villages okay, Balatonszentgyorgy, Kethley and a few others but investment wise, North or West of the lake is better.
Renovating for short term resale is not really viable in Hungary at the moment due to the heavy sales tax imposed in first four years - this has had a positive effect in that it has kept out the idiots who artificially inflated prices in places such as Bulgaria thus, allowing sharks to make huge profits selling naive individuals dreams that didn't exist.
Labour is not as cheap as some may think - if employed legitimately. Taxes and other contributions are high in Hungary and though many work "on the black" you should be aware that if you employ casual labour, YOU the employer are liable for their contributions - this should be submitted online and if not, you can be fined upwards of £1,000 per worker. The labour law is complex and not one that I am in a frame of mind to detail at the moment - suffice to say, doing business in Hungary, legitimately, is costly, time consuming and mind boggling - to say the least.

Re: hi guys
 

Cheers for that rural hungary your post. Was educational for me I've clearly got. A lot to learn I am due to come ther in the next week to see for my self do you no any areas what will be worth checking out ? And whuld I be better of to do it over a 4-5 year period whuld this save a lot on taxes in I also noticed on a previous thread you offer your servicies for a fee this is somthing I whuld be keen to youse maybe I chuld meet up with you when I am over that whuld be perfect if possible hope the headaces not to bad in the morning regards steak

Re: hi guys
 

I would love to be proved wrong but I don't think you would have any realistic prospect of renting out houses in that area and as RH has mentioned, if you sell you will be taxed with something similar to capital gains tax. If I thought there was money to be made from such a scheme I would be doing it myself. The question about whether you need a company depends on how much work you will do yourself. If you need to get a lot of the work done by local labour you probably would be best to become a proper employer and pay an hourly rate but if you can do most jobs yourself you could employ firms of electricians or whatever and just get quotes for specific jobs. It is not like Bulgaria where you need to start a company just to buy a house or land.
I am currently renovating my property, a village house in Zala, the next county to Somogy. I now regret buying this particular property as it has too much land. I failed to do sufficient research and was unaware of 2 facts:

1) Grass and weeds grow extremely fast in Hungary, despite the low rainfall. I had assumed it would be a bit like Greece, where plants tend to die unless you water them in the summer.
2) My village and many others have rules concerning the spread of ragweed. I am supposed to cut down all the grass and weeds at least twice a year as a means of controlling this harmful plant.

I won't manage to do the whole area twice as it took me about 4 months of daily strimmer sessions just to clear it once! I don't enjoy the best of health so I limit myself to one fuel tankful session with the strimmer per day, i.e. about an hour. I can't even offer the land to the neighbouring farmer as it is currently planted out with Christmas trees. I might try to sell the property after the 4 years but I don't suppose it will be easy to sell and I will be lucky if I recoup what I have spent on materials. Materials are generally dearer than in UK, especially stuff imported into Hungary from other countries.

Re: hi guys
 

An hour a day strimming,thats the stuff of nightmares (mine at least :() perhaps a goat would be better!!:)

Re: hi guys
 

What areas do yous think has a better prospect?

Re: hi guys
 

The thing to recognise is that house prices are set by supply and demand. The places where they are cheap it is because there are more houses than there are people to live in them. It is not like in UK where people commute long distances to work as here they don't earn enough to pay the transport costs that would require. As I said before, Budapest is your best bet as there is always plenty of demand for rented accommodation. Even if you ultimately wanted to sell your properties you would have no problem renting them until the 4 years were up. There may be other thriving cities but you would need to do the research.

Re: hi guys
 

It's a national law with regards to the ragweed. Some villages do however have local regulations regarding the maximum length of grass, clearing of ice and leaves etc

Why don't you pay somebody in the village to do your land, the amount you have should only cost about 6,000ft including petrol and if local, no travel costs.

Re: hi guys
 

Depends what your budget is, what your short and long term plans are as well as a host of other factors.
Taking a gamble - Zala area close to the airport, Heviz or Zalakaros in the hope one of the budget airlines take up the UK route.
Safer investment? - plot and build new in one of the lakeside villages to the North of the lake or around Heviz or Zalakaros or, as has been suggested and should your budget stretch to it, Budapest. There are of course many other areas that will be worth considering but I can only write about those I am familiar with.

What you don't want to do is believe the hype and buy 20 miles from the Lake in the belief that you will resell purely on that basis. Our village is 19 miles from the lake and I don't consider that to be a major selling point for here. However, we are also only 5 minutes from a new swimming/spa complex, 10 miles from Zalakaros spa resort, 6 miles from Kis Balaton nature reserve, 6 miles from a decent fishing lake, 10 miles from Sarmellek airport, 18 miles to the towns of Nagykanisza and Keszthely and 19 to Heviz.
The point I am trying to make is that unless the property is for your own use and fits all your requirements, just being X amount of miles from the lake will not have a huge impact on the resale value, unless you are very close to the lake as otherwise, as Fidbosa pointed out, there is a surplus of properties. It is worth looking at an area and asking what, apart from the lake, would make it an appealing area to buy in.

Re: hi guys
 

Thanks ime understanding what your saying do you no anyone who has built ther own house there what are the time lines they usualy take I no each house is diffrent but genraly speaking are they fast working and what's the prices like I noticed resherching houses the newbuilds near the lake go for a fair amount of money and is ther many propertys to let ther to stay for a bit and get the feel of the place before any decisions are made I only seem to be able to find holdayhomes on my blackberry

Re: hi guys
 

Thanks again ime taking on board evryting you say and am gratefull for it how fast to the hungarians work I no each house is diffrent but are they fast in genral? And what are the prices like I heard some times is cheeper to build than renovate ?

Re: hi guys
 

Double post thought I wiped the first one off by mistake is ther a phone app for be coz my screen keeps blanking out on me

Re: hi guys
 

Just wanted to clarify my reasons for this comment and to reiterate that it is only my opinion.
If you look at google satellite, you can easily see that much of Somogy county is flat, compare this to Zala county and the difference is obvious. We looked at many villages in Somogy when buying here - not knowing anything about the different counties, and our personal preference was Zala which we found to be more scenic. That said, Somogy is a large county and does have areas which are not flat.
Since buying here, we have heard of many problems in villages in Somogy and whilst these problems also exist in villages in other counties, they appear to be more prevalent in Somogy and statistics support this and whilst I know of several Brits who are perfectly happy in villages in Somogy and would never wish to upset anybody living there, it can be down to pure luck as to whether you buy in a good village or not - unless you do your homework and research thoroughly and even then.
Take for example the number of registered crimes per 10,000 inhabitants for the two towns in each county - Somogy : Marcali 756 Kaposvar 605 and Zala : Nagykanizsa 307 Zalaegerszeg 378 there is quite a difference.