Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

you hit the jackpot.

Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

May be the way they dress? 😉

Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

You can spot them. Clothes, body language, posture

Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

Spot on!

Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

I can be considered one of the failed expats with respect to Hungary as I sold up and moved to Croatia. In my case I wanted to relocate as a means of taking early retirement due to health problems. I had (have) a bad back but could not get doctors to take me seriously. I suppose so many people use it as an excuse to get signed off work that the doctors fail to recognise genuine cases. I suppose the idea of buying property abroad first occurred to me when I was looking for a way to sell my house in Scotland. I had bought a very cheap camper van and was doing some repairs. I needed some parts and heard of someone breaking up an old caravan. When I went to see these parts I got to the location before the appointed time so I had a look round the town (Dornoch, I think it was) In an estate agent window I spotted a house I liked the look of. I seriously considered selling my house and buying that one but did not have a high opinion of Scottish estate agents. I wondered if I could sell my house on Ebay but had never looked to see if they had houses. I found they did indeed advertise houses there but most of them were in Bulgaria! I had already seen one or two TV programmes about people buying property in Bulgaria but had not realised how cheap the normal village houses could be as they tend to only consider beach type properties with swimming pools for those TV shows.
I never really considered relocating full time at that stage but was interested in buying a place for holiday use and modernising it. I did go on a viewing trip but that is another long and fairly grim story! It was a few years later that I decided to look for a place for early retirement. My favourite was the Limousin region of France but I also looked at Germany, Austria and Hungary. France got ruled out on economic grounds. They have a version of the NHS but it does not cover the full cost of (for example) hospital treatment. It may cover say 75% of the bill but the individual has to take out private health insurance to cover the remaining 25%. With me having an existing back problem the cost of such insurance would be prohibitive.
Germany was rejected because I thought I would be getting back into the rat-race, which I had left behind in the '90s when I moved to northern Scotland. This was a shame because the houses in Germany are mostly attractive, solid and well maintained. Hard to put a finger on why I didn't like Austria but it just felt wrong for me. Hungary seemed to offer the best compromise of low house purchase and living costs, modern infrastructure and low population density. It also helped that there were other Brits around if I needed advice and information. For me the big stumbling block was the language. Nobody in my village spoke any English and I failed dismally in my attempts to learn Hungarian. I felt too isolated, especially after I lost touch with Vic. Vic was an English expat of Hungarian descent and I had met him due to renting his house on my first property viewing trip. In the first year or two he did a lot of interpreting for me, especially in my village. His parents taught him to speak Hungarian but not to read or write it, so he was as clueless as me about documents in Hungarian. I did not consider Croatia at the time I bought the house in Hungary (2010) as it was not an EU country at that time. I do not regret moving to Croatia and it puzzles me that more Brits don't come here to live. I think they only look at the coast , where house prices are much higher.

Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

Fidobsa, do you speak Croatian ? Will you learn ?

Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

More Croatians speak English I assume.
It is easier to get by in Hungary with German than with English.

Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

Why do so many Croations go and work outside Croatia? Why do they try to maintain a link to e.g. Austria or Germany after retirement just to be able to have medical aid access in Austria or Germany?
From what I understand only the tourist areas are really developed. Inland nothing much has happened. Half built houses, houses still show bullet holes from recent Balkan war.
And what I noticed after having a Croation neighbor for a while: they are damned noisy, a normal conversation sounded like a fight.
Friendly they weren't either. No attempt to integrate in the host country. Was this family and their friends the odd ones out?

Re: Living in Hungary - why?
 

I have not encountered any hostility in the 3 years or so that I've been spending time in Croatia.There has been a lot of depopulation because people see they can get a lot more money for the same work if they travel a relatively short distance to Austria or Germany. They are still close enough to get back to Croatia for holidays etc. This also partly accounts for the half built houses although another reason is that a lot were built illegally and at some point the government clamped down on this. People abandoned the project rather than risk having a demolition order or whatever. I have not seen war damaged houses but it could be that there was not much warfare in my area. I do know that one neighbour came as a refugee from Bosnia so perhaps this was a relatively safe part of Yugoslavia. I have not heard of people going to other countries for medical help, although Croatian health facilities are perhaps not the best. I can't comment about Croatians who relocate to other countries but the ones I meet are generally polite and helpful. There is also very little crime. People leave all kinds of equipment outside that you would have to lock away in UK. I never dared go to school on my bicycle as it would have been stolen or vandalised but lots of kids here go to school on bikes and don't even lock them up.