In a world where violence, crime and social tension keep rising, especially in the West, many people yearn to return to a simpler European life.
People often look to small villages in Spain, Portugal, France and Italy to some extent.
But a much under-appreciated destination is the Danube region of Hungary.
The Danube in many ways is one of the cradles of European civilization.
While living in Hungary a few years back, I discovered this region through weekend cycling trips. It is absolutely gorgeous, calm and reminiscent of Western Europe 20 years ago, but with good infrastructure and fast internet.
In this video with my Budapest buyer’s agent Benedek, we make the case for charming, Hungarian, small-town living along the Danube.
Budapest still offers good value for money compared to other European capital cities
But gone are the days when it was a yield play as well. Prices have risen, and yields have compressed. Budapest real estate in now a capital preservation/capital appreciation play that banks on further convergence with Western markets.
Here is an analysis of the Budapest real estate market.
Feel free to get in touch with Benedek my Budapest real estate buyer’s agent.
To a World of Opportunities,
The Wandering Investor.
Services in Hungary:
- A Real Estate Lawyer in Budapest, Hungary
- My favourite buyer’s agent in Budapest, Hungary
- Golden Visa in Hungary through real estate investment
Articles on Hungary:
- Budapest, Hungary Real Estate Market: 2025 Investor Guide for good value for money in Central Europe
- A cheap Plan B in rural Hungary
- Investing in the Stock Market in HUNGARY, good value or value trap?
- Best neighbourhoods and districts to buy Real Estate in Budapest
- Buying historic property in Budapest – full rental yield and ROI calculation
If you want to read more such articles on other real estate markets in the world, go to the bottom of my International Real Estate Services page.
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Transcript of “Danube Real Estate near Budapest for European Village Lifestyle and Airbnb”
LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello, everyone. Ladislas Maurice of The Wandering Investor. And today, we are in beautiful, sunny Budapest, and we are going to check out little towns 40 minutes away from Budapest that are right along the Danube.
Why are people looking for real estate outside Budapest?
LADISLAS MAURICE: Benedek, you live here, you’re from Budapest, you help people invest in real estate here in the city, but you were telling me people are increasingly looking for such little towns?
BENEDEK: Yes, my clients are starting to look for alternatives, because Budapest is becoming more expensive, and some of them they already have their jobs and businesses that they can do remotely, but still want to be connected to the capital city for cultural and other reasons. This is a good alternative for those that are not bound to a place within Budapest, want to buy cheaper property and also stay or live in a beautiful nature setting.
LADISLAS MAURICE: I used to live in Budapest for a few years, and my best memories of Hungary are when I would take the bike and just ride along the Danube, all the way to the Slovak border on one side and come back through the other side. These little towns there along the Danube were absolutely charming, lovely. There’s quite a fair amount of domestic tourism, but not really international tourism. It’s not very well-known, but it’s truly Central European charm at its peak.
BENEDEK: Yes. But even the domestic tourism, it’s not very busy. It doesn’t get busy. People who come as tourists in these locations are coming to get isolated and stay in a little forest shack and be by themselves, so they won’t bother anyone. [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: [laughs] All right, so I see the GPS says, another 36 minutes. Let’s go.
Overview of Vát, Hungary
BENEDEK: We are here in the main square of Vác, which is one of the most liked satellite towns outside of Budapest, but it’s only like 30, 35 minutes away by train. As you can see, it also has beautiful architecture. It’s been inhabited since ancient Roman times, hence the ruins behind us. Right now, there are approximately 30,000 people living here in this town. And you can get an apartment even on the main square or in the nice areas of the town for cheaper than a city center apartment in Budapest, approximately the equivalent of an apartment on the outskirts of Budapest.
LADISLAS MAURICE: And you’re really close to Budapest, right? It’s how long by train?
BENEDEK: It’s 30, 35 minutes away. And you’re not only close to Budapest, but also the Danube is just a stone’s throw away.
LADISLAS MAURICE: We’ll go check it out. And then one thing, I mean, taking the train in Hungary is an experience. They’re certainly not as fast as in Japan, France, or Spain, but it just feels very retro, and nice, and very family orientated. It feels like last century.
BENEDEK: Last century vibes, right.
LADISLAS MAURICE: I really recommend it. Fantastic. Let’s go check out the Danube now.
BENEDEK: Let’s go.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Let’s do a little menu check here. We’re looking at, roughly, $15 for a typical Hungarian food.
Touring life around the Danube in Hungary
LADISLAS MAURICE: This is it, one of the key selling points here, the beautiful Danube. And what’s interesting is there are bridges along, but not so many, so what people do is there are all these ferry services. And right across, it’s an island, right, Benedek?
BENEDEK: Yes, exactly. And then you need to take a ferry for the other side as well from the island.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Look, when I lived in Budapest, those were my best memories, really, was cycling just from Budapest to the Slovak border, and then back through the other side of the Danube. And this is, essentially, this is the cycle path. It goes right through. Really, when you have this sort of weather, we’re end of September right now, it’s not too hot, not too cold, there’s a little bit of wind, so it’s nice and comfortable when you’re cycling, it’s just perfect. And then you just cycle all day, stop for a beer, then you go for lunch, then you stop for another beer. It’s just–
BENEDEK: [laughs] It starts not to sound like cycling but actual drinking.
LADISLAS MAURICE: [laughs] Yeah, yeah, it’s, like, good times, for sure. And then you have all these little farmers markets along the way, so you just get berries from the farmer. It’s so nice. This is really peak Central Europe. And there are a lot of water sports on the Danube as well, right?
BENEDEK: Yeah, exactly. Every day I was kayaking on the Danube for 10 years of my life, so I know the ins and outs everywhere.
LADISLAS MAURICE: And then what happened?
BENEDEK: Man, I just got old and lazy. [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: [laughs] To see the type of real estate that you can buy, I mean, look, this is not cheap, because Danube view. Just beautiful historical buildings. You see cute little streets like this, barely any traffic, right next to the Danube, right next to the central square, half an hour from Budapest, it’s 100% Hungarian, there’s no foreigner in sight, it’s really lovely. r of a house in Vát, Hungary
Tour of a house in Vát, Hungary
Benedek, we’re going to go check out a property now, right?
BENEDEK: Exactly, a full building, actually.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Full building. All right, let’s go check it out. Benedek, tell us about this house.
BENEDEK: This house is for sale currently. It was built in the beginning of the 20th century. It has beautiful architecture on the facade. It has a beautiful, beautiful, huge main front gate. And the whole surface area is 160 square meters, and there is also a basement level on another additional 140 square meters, so the whole place together is over 300 square meters. And right now, it’s for sale for approximately €350,000. But of course, it requires a full renovation to be possible to use it in a proper manner. But it could make for a very nice sort of personal villa for someone that admires living in a location like this.
The approximate cost of a renovation of such scale would be somewhere around €200,000. The cost altogether would be a bit over half a million euros, which is a hefty sum, but for a unique building like this, in such a peaceful setting, it might be worth considering.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, and just look at the streets around. It’s all green, it’s calm, there’s barely any traffic, people are walking around. We’re a five-minute walk away from the city center, with all the shops, the banks, the restaurants. And you can see here as well, just look at how green and quaint it is here. How far away are we from the train station?
BENEDEK: The train station is, like, 5, 10 minutes of walk.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. In, literally, 40 minutes from this beautiful door, you are in the center of Budapest. One of the aspects I really like about smaller towns in Hungary is you still have a lot of parking freedom. Look at how Benedek just parked here.
BENEDEK: [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: Literally, on the sidewalk, like the other people.
BENEDEK: It’s their idea.
LADISLAS MAURICE: [laughs] And parking is free here, too, right?
BENEDEK: Yeah, it is.
LADISLAS MAURICE: We were here for two hours, no issues.
BENEDEK: We are going through a couple of small towns on our way towards the northern part of the country. This is a very small but very cute town with only 4,000 inhabitants. It has a part which goes alongside the Danube with a couple of nice buildings. This is the town center part, and there is an outward part which are sort of a woodland. People like to go there to rest and to just check out a bit from society.
LADISLAS MAURICE: You were saying there were some little wooden homes in the middle of the forest and stuff that people can buy as well?
BENEDEK: Yeah, exactly.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, little cottages.
BENEDEK: Cottages, exactly. There are little buildings, houses along the forest streams here, so it’s very serene there.
Tour of an unfinished property on the Danube in Hungary
LADISLAS MAURICE: All right, Benedek, what are we looking at here?
BENEDEK: This is a structurally ready building that was left unfinished and is, for now, sale. It requires interior jobs to be done with it, but judging from what I have seen about it, it’s in a decent quality. Obviously, if someone were to buy this, then we would definitely need to bring an engineer here to inspect it before. But otherwise, we are looking at a three-story building with amazing views over the river and the hills on the other side of the Danube. We are looking at half an acre of land that is going upwards in a steep hill, and we are looking at a relaxed, great lifestyle that you can achieve by moving here.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. We’ll go check out the views and look at the numbers, pricing, etc., for the renovation as well. All right, let’s go.
BENEDEK: The important numbers are, the plot size is approximately half an acre, stretching all the way up to the hill. The building base area is 160 square meters. And there is an additional smaller house that’s good for staff or construction staff to finish it, that’s another 30 square meters. And the asking price for the whole package is €340,000, which I would assume is negotiable.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Usually, people don’t really like taking over projects like this, so usually, they’re a bit more negotiable than a finished house. I see it almost as an advantage as someone that likes to invest, because you are getting a pretty decent deal on it. You’re effectively paying €2,000 a square meter for all the land, all the structural work that’s been done. And then the finishings, you’re looking at– I mean, not finishings, they’re more than finishings. You have all the plumbing, all the electricity, the windows, all that, over €1,000 a square meter, I would assume.
BENEDEK: Some over, yeah, because it also needs the detail job, yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: But then you get it the way you want it. You literally just come in for the windows you want, the finishings you want, etc. And then the staff house is a nice touch if you want to have cleaning staff or a nanny, it’s good. And these views are very nice. I mean, I actually see one of the tourism boats here on the Danube. We’re close to Visegrád, right?
BENEDEK: Yeah, it’s on the other side, exactly.
LADISLAS MAURICE: On the other side.
BENEDEK: You can even see the Visegrád Castle from here.
Comparison to property in Lake Balaton
LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s just a beautiful part of the world, very peaceful, very nice. I’m not surprised that people increasingly want to move to places like this. And it’s a lot more affordable than Balaton, right?
BENEDEK: Exactly, yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: I mean, Balaton has a big expat community, but prices have just become quite expensive.
BENEDEK: Balaton is almost double as this amount nowadays.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. And Balaton offers swimming and cycling. Here, you get the cycling, not so much the swimming. [laughs]
BENEDEK: Yeah, if you’re adventurous. [laughs]
LADISLAS MAURICE: [laughs] I wrote a whole article on the real estate market in Budapest, the interesting neighborhoods, the neighborhoods you should avoid, what you should know before investing here in Hungary. There’s a link below.
Airbnb in Hungary outside of Budapest
LADISLAS MAURICE: And if you want someone to help you invest in Budapest or in places like this for lifestyle, because, I mean, you’re not coming here to do rental yields, right?
BENEDEK: Definitely, yeah.
LADISLAS MAURICE: You can do Airbnb. That works, there are no restrictions. Can you say two words on this?
BENEDEK: If you’re following the channel, then you know Budapest is under moratorium now for short-term rentals. But since we are outside of Budapest, there is no restrictions here whatsoever. If you are into that, it’s possible to even turn this into a guest house, even though I wouldn’t do it, personally, but that’s just me.
LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. If you want a place for part of the year, part of the year you put in on Airbnb, part of the year you’re here, you can do this here, which has become a lot harder in Budapest. Feel free to get in touch with Benedek if you’re looking at real estate around here or in Budapest, there is a link below.
Benedek, thank you very much.
BENEDEK: It was a pleasure.
