Cushman & Wakefield: 2011 best year for Budapest office leasing market since crisis
With nearly 400,000 sqm of office space leased, 2011 was the best year since 2008, according to a fresh report by Cushman & Wakefield. The firm said vacancy rates fell to 23.4% from 24.7% in 2010, despite a rise in leasable new office space of 71,000 sqm last year. [more]
Duna House: Hungary home sales jump to record in January as owners rush to retire forex mortgages
Home sales rose to a record 13,000 in January, according a fresh estimate by property agency Duna House. This compares to about 5,000 sales a year earlier. [more]
Colliers Hungary says 2011 solid, expanding business lines in 2012
The Hungarian unit of Colliers International said it had a solid year in 2011 as it managed two of the four property investment deals last year, including the largest office deal in the past five years and the leasing of several retail stores in Budapest’s high-profile shopping streets, Andrássy út and Váci út. The firm plans to launch property management and environmental consultancy lines this year to expand its profile. [more]
Foreign residents said participating in Hungary’s forex mortgage repayment scheme
Many foreign residents over the past few weeks have taken advantage of Hungary’s scheme to pay back forex mortgages at a favourable exchange rate, Magyar Nemzet daily said on Wednesday, citing market insiders. [more]
Eiffel Palace to join Eiffel Square in Nyugati neighborhood revival
The vibrant but shabby area around Nyugati tér at the intersection of Budapest’s Districts V, VI and XIII is set to get a little spiffier thanks to the pending redevelopment of a landmark building on Bajcsy-Zsilinszky út a block from the square. [more]
Sales of 200 new flats put Nanette Real Estate near top in 2011
Nanette Real Estate said it sold 203 new apartments in Hungary last year, making it one of the best-performing players in the local market for residential new builds. The company said sales picked up in the last quarter of 2011 as demand for investment properties rose. [more]
Hungarian state could lose HUF 95 billion on halted TóPark complex
The National Development Ministry is seeking to terminate the contract of Bia-Projekt Zrt, the company responsible for building the access roads to the abandoned Tópark mixed-use project on the outskirts of Budapest, saying it could lose HUF 95 billion in EU funding if the roads are not finished this year. [more]
Homeowners protest as faltering Andrássy Palace Gardens luxury development slips into critical condition
The residents of a landmark building complex on Pest’s Kodály körönd are protesting the local government’s failure to resolve a standoff over the faltered Andrássy Palace Gardens luxury development, which was to convert the structure into a luxury apartment block by the end of 2009, the Urbanista blog reports. [more]
Famed Hatvany villa, considered most expensive in Hungary, goes on the block [6]
The Hatvany villa, one of Hungary’s most expensive multi-purpose residential buildings, has been put up for sale after an 16-year-long renovation said to cost billions of forints. [more]
Sales of “investment” residential properties said rising; account for quarter of all deals
Purchases of homes for investment purposes rose significantly in Hungary between September and December last year as an increasingly negative economic outlook both in Hungary and Europe drove investors to more secure and high-yielding investments, a survey by Duna House indicates. [more]
Budapest local governments mull new taxes on residential properties
A growing number of local governments in Budapest are planning to levy new taxes to replenish their budgets as they struggle to ward off the effects of a financial crunch. Currently only five of the 23 Budapest districts are collecting so-called communal taxes, a type of property tax on residential properties. But more are planning to introduce similar taxes in the near future. [more]
HUF 4 billion spa opens as last creation of famed Hungarian architect Makovecz
Local officials of the city of Mako in south-east Hungary on Friday inaugurated a spa that was one of the last projects designed by the Kossuth Prize-winning architect Imre Makovecz before he died last September. [more]
CET backers said ready to buy out city as utility cut-off leaves complex facing ongoing decay [1]
Porto Kft, the investor of the long-delayed and dispute-fraught CET Budapest mixed-used project on the Danube waterfront, has offered to buy out the Budapest municipality at a fair market price, and said it is also prepared to assume the local government’s related liabilities. But as the dispute drags on, the multi-billion forint complex is slowly sliding into disrepair, with a cut-off of electricity threatening floods due to broken pipes. [more]
Andrássy út luxury die-off takes a break as avenue awaits new branded shops, mall
In what business daily Napi Gazdaság is calling a “French-Swiss luxury invasion”, high-end watch-maker Hublot and luxury leather goods and gifts purveyor S.T. Dupont are expected to soon open branded boutiques on Pest’s Andrássy út, while a new “luxury mall” financed by a rich Hungarian will appear by the end of the year. [more]
Developer blames gov’t for banks’ pulling plug on billion-forint spa hotel investment
Dél-Alföld Consulting has halted a four-star hotel development in Algyő, near Szeged, after it failed to obtain a bank loan for the project. The investor, which bought a plot by the local Borbála spa for HUF 13 million, has raised HUF 450 million in EU funds and some HUF 400 million from its own resources to build a HUF 1.2 billion 48-room hotel before it was forced to shelve plans after it couldn’t find a lender to bankroll the investment with HUF 300-400 million. [more]
Home sales up as mortgage conversion deadline looms [5]
Home sales gathered pace in the first week of 2012 as troubled mortgage owners were scrambling to sell their homes ahead of the January 30 deadline for borrowers to raise cash for the government’s early repayment program, according to leading national agency Otthon Centrum. The market was also ticking up on buyers looking for solid long-term investments, the agency said. [more]
Budapest’s “other” Postapalota to be converted into five-star hotel [1]
Budapest’s historic downtown Postal Palace (Postapalota) will be converted into a five-star hotel. Located on Petőfi Sándor utca in District V (and not to be confused with another building in Széll Kálmán tér also dubbed the Postapalota), the 19th century former main postal building will be restored to its original state and get two more stories, as well as a glass roof over its inner courtyard. [more]
Are developer Futureal’s future plans for real?
While across Europe – and certainly across Hungary – the great wave of property development seen in the middle part of the last decade has come to a halt, one local developer seems to be acting like it’s still 2007. [more]
DTZ sees hope 2012 will end downward spiral in Hungarian property investment market
The acute financial crisis has further weakened investors’ interest in Hungary’s property market, but 2012 may bring some recovery in the real estate segment, according to DTZ property investment adviser György Lindwurm. [more]
Developer calls government’s bluff in tussle over sale of landmark “Postal Palace”
An interesting property story from over the holiday break involves the long-running controversy over the historic Postal Palace (Postapalota) in Buda, which was sold during the previous, Socialist-led administration to WVR Primus, a unit of the Wallis group of companies, which are widely perceived as being close to that party. [more]