We found a flat! It's in an amazing area of town. In District V Belváros, which is the inner city, downtown area. It is the absolute center of Pest. And it is literally 2 minutes from the University and even closer to the major Metro stop.
On Thursday, my roommate and I went to sign the contract. They require us to put down the 1st half of the safety deposit in cash--which was very annoying, since as study abroad students, our only source of readily available Hungarian Forints are from ATM machines, which have a set value of how much you can take out on a daily basis.
Everything is dealt with in cash in Budapest--except for in tourist areas and major shopping centers. They take Visa, Mastercard. American Express (which I have) is limited. We will be paying our rent completely in cash. Most places, however, only accept cash. As someone who usually never carry cash and rely on cards, I find it particularly interesting to suddenly find myself with a bulging wallet of three different currencies.
On Friday, we returned to the management agency to sign the lease. With our second half of the safety deposit, the common cost, and first month's rent. Thankfully, they were kind enough to keep the lease bilingual. But the lease signing requires the presence of a witness. At first the management agency (which is ran out of a converted apartment in a residential building, apparently very common in Hungary) insisted that one of her colleagues be the witness, but we managed to get the director of the study abroad program to come instead. Just in case.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to move in until Monday.
In Hungary, they change the lock every time a new resident moves in. They also hate short term renters. Which means that a 4-month lease is as short as it can be from 90% of the rental agencies. But with the slow global economy, Hungary was hit particularly hard (they ever quite recovered from their Communist economic past to begin with), these days renters will rent anything.
Flat prices are up for negotiation, especially in struggling new developments which stands empty for months on end. If you know the right agent to take you to the right people. It's a city run on money--the lack of it, the excess of it, the pursuit of it.
(It also appears that most houses are owned by "Westerners" not native Hungarians. The apartment building we are renting is owned by an Irishman, managed by a Hungarian rental agency. It is the case with most buildings we saw. The building would be owned by an American, or an Australian, or a Brit, but runned by small Hungarian agencies.)
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