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Unbearable Prices

Renting a flat or apartment in a new city can be easy as pie or difficult as hell. It of course depends on a lot of factors, some of which are in your control, and many of which aren’t. One thing you cannot control is the price. You can always try to bargain or haggle or offer some kind of counter offer, but the price is often based on the current market prices and what the owner thinks they can get for the place. When I arrived in Budapest 6 years ago, I paid about 60.000 HUF for a 32 m2 apartment, it was a so called “olcsó albérlet” (with everything included - utilities and common cost). Skip ahead to 2 years ago. I was paying about 100.000 HUF+ for a 57 m2 apartment in which I lived alone. Skip ahead to the present day, where a friend of mine lives in a 2-bedroom flat and for her room alone (of course including her share of the flat), pays about 115.000 HUF — remember, this is not for a whole apartment, it’s just for one room. And on top of that, many people have told her how great a find her place is, how good of a deal it is. WHAT?!?!? The fact that such a price is considered acceptable FOR A ROOM is crazy, but sadly this is how things have changed here in Budapest. I’m sure flat owners are super duper happy about the massive leap in the prices here in the city, but for those of us who earn a normal Hungarian salary, it sucks. Salaries have not gone up much since I moved here, and of course the price of everything else has. While I have a good income here in Hungary, there are many who do not and don’t have the same opportunities as I do. How can they afford to pay such prices that are now the norm here in Budapest? Going back to my friend who pays 115.000 HUF for her room, she earns about 280.000 HUF per month, and after paying her portion of the rent is left with about 165.000 HUF of disposable income. While she’s not starving or barely hanging on, I wouldn’t call her situation the most ideal.

            And well, the prices of flat rentals don’t seem to be leveling off or balancing out. I don’t think they will for some time to come. How long can these astronomical prices last? When will the real estate bubble break here in Hungary? Something has to change or people will start demanding a change. And if that change doesn’t happen, then more people will start leaving the country, which of course has been a trend for many years already. If Hungary wants to retain the people who live here for generations to come, then something must happen and it must happen soon. I’m not holding my breath.