Looking for a property near Lake Balaton? You’ll have to dig deep into your pockets!

If you want to buy a house at Lake Balaton in Somogy County, you can choose from the most expensive properties in the country.

Buying property in Lake Balaton

Property prices along the shores of Lake Balaton have risen dramatically in recent years. Thus, the price per square metre of buildings around the Hungarian sea is even higher than the prices in Budapest, 24.hu writes.

Of course, the closer the property is to the water, the more it costs. “If you go back in time 10-15 years, you could practically buy a luxury property for HUF 100 million (EUR 256 thousand). Nowadays, that kind of money might not be enough for a waterfront apartment. Sometimes you may have to pay HUF 200-300-400 million (EUR 513 thousand- 1 million) for a house,” said László Balogh, chief economist at ingatlan.com.

Expensive, but are prices going down?

According to data from the real estate agent, the price of property at Lake Balaton has been steadily falling over the past year. For example, in Siófok, the capital of Lake Balaton, the price of a square metre used to be HUF 1,150,000 (EUR 2949), but now it has fallen back to HUF 1,050,000 (EUR 2693). Even though prices have been going down, Siófok is still much more expensive than Budapest, where prices per square metre are around 940-950 thousand (EUR 2411).

If you want to buy a house at Lake Balaton but want to save money, you should look around the western part of the lake. Here, you can buy a building for up to 30 percent less, sonline.hu writes.

In fact, if you want even cheaper property, you should buy a house in southern Somogy. Here, buildings are offered for sale for an average of HUF 300 thousand (EUR 769.4) per square metre, or even less in many cases.