Neighbouring land and buildings to my Vineyard I bought for $9k (£6k)

People often ask me what businesses or projects I am involved in now. Other than my book and Direct Entrepreneur Course  commitments I am investing in very inexpensive land and property.

Strangely I started in this type of property investing when I had the least to invest so I started looking for areas where I could buy with the small amount of money I had.  The first piece of land I bought was 2 acres with a small house for $30k (£20k)! I then extended that by buying neighbouring land for as little as $9k (£6k). I joked at the time that they were amounts of money I could have stuck on my credit card.

Since then I have bought other properties in the area including a large house with outbuildings and land that needed renovating that we are turning into 2 apartments and  holiday cottages. That whole property cost $65k (£45k).

So where is this land and property? In an inaccessible part of the world where nobody wants to go? Where the weather is awful and in a place with no amenities? No. It’s right in a tourist resort, in one of the best kept secrets in Europe. Germans and Dutch people love it but it is virtually undiscovered by Brits, Americans and other English speakers. It isn’t in the Euro currency so it is cheap to take your money there but it is in the EU so it is protected by European law and regulations.

So where is it? The lake Balaton in Hungary. 99% of English speaking visitors only know Budapest and many have visited the capital which is one of my favourite cities in the world (and I am not a city person). But many never venture to where Hungarians and many other Europeans go in Hungary for their vacations and holidays. I think this might be due to Brits looking for beach resorts for their holidays and their idea of a lake is a small fishing lake but the lake Balaton is so long you can’t see from one end to the other (approx 50 miles, twice the distance of the English Channel). There are sandy beaches and because it has no tides it is relatively safe for swimming and the water is incredibly warm in the summer.

I have had my greatest success in property investing and I won’t lie it has even saved my skin a few times when other projects were failing. I hear from people all the time saying that it isn’t possible to make money from property anymore but that’s just because they are looking in the wrong places.

The one problem with buying property in this area of Hungary is that the only English speaking agents and businesses setup to sell property to overseas visitors are selling at massively over-inflated prices. I have heard many stories of foreign buyers paying 2 or 3 times the real value. Local people hardly ever use agents for this reason and the only way to find the right property at the right price is through local knowledge and contacts.

I am very keen to get more English speaking visitors and investors in the area so if you are interested I will gladly give you the benefit of my knowledge and contacts for free. Just get in touch with me using the form below: