Renting an appartment, how much does it really cost?

Many people look only at the rental fee of the property when searching a flat or house for rent. Unfortunately this is not enough.

It is very important to examine how much the total living would cost on a monthly bases. There is no use renting something very cheap and pay more for the heating and the utilities than the rental fee.

Always make sure how much are the common costs, the electricity, gas, water. Many flats have old refridgerators, water heaters, air conditioners which waste a lot of energy. The lowest total rental conditions are the properties with fixed utility costs. In many cases the house central heated properties are more calculable because the heating is included in the common costs and evenly split around the year. The tenant can forsee the costs easily. If possible, ask for bills from the previous years for inspection.

More care should be taken if:

• The flat has electric heating. Győződjünk meg róla, mennyi a valós fűtési költség és az milyen hőmérsékletet biztosít
• Not all the rooms have a heating unit. Előfordulhat például, hogy télen hideg a fürdőszoba
• The flat is bigger in size (above 80 square meters). A bigger size appartment could easily have higher heating costs than a double size family house because of unisolated walls, old doors and windows, even if it has the most up-to-date heating system

If the property owner is a private person, he/she has to pay personal income tax after the rental fee, which could be very high. If the owner is a company, the rent is usually free from taxes unless the company is registered in the VAT for property rent. In this case the 27% VAT should ba payed as well.

As a rule of thumb, we can say now in 2013 that the monthly living cost start from 40-50 000 HUF. per person