At the request of one of our major property developers, we were searching Budapest for entire residential buildings available for purchase. That’s how we found ourselves in the crumbling, ramshackle, yet incredibly vibrant world of a traditional Budapest courtyard building.
In the courtyard: a caravan seemingly left behind from the 1980s, a banana-tree “oasis”, shared toilets, chickens and roosters roaming freely, barking dogs — and one enormous trampoline.
Accordion music, televisions and radios blared from the apartments.
The open-air corridors seemed to be held together by little more than divine intervention, yet the building’s long-time residents sat out there in rain, snow and freezing weather.
There was a young man in a suit, the building caretaker, residents rather fond of alcohol and nicotine — and even someone who occasionally seemed to misplace his trousers.
Then, suddenly, there was an enormous crash.
A brick had fallen from the crumbling wall of the neighbouring building, hit a sheet of metal and ricocheted straight into the middle of the trampoline.
Everyone came running.
Fortunately, there were no children on it.
A developer had previously planned to renovate the building, but the project had fallen through. And so everything remained exactly as it was.
And the residents remained on the open-air corridors.
Waiting to see what would arrive first — a new developer or the next falling brick.
That’s where we came in. We negotiated individually with all 34 residents until, eventually, the entire building became the property of our developer.
We don’t only know how to sell beautiful properties — we see opportunity where others see only ruins.
Thinking of selling your property?
Let’s talk. +36-30-940-0839
