Why we changed markets

We didn't leave Budapest because the market collapsed. We left because our craft, renovating and managing properties for investors, is better practiced elsewhere today. Here's why, plainly.

Ten years, around sixty renovations

François has been investing in real estate since 2012. In 2015, he founded Investissement Budapest. Since then, the company has carried out around sixty full renovations in Budapest and managed a similar number of properties for investors, mostly French-speaking. That experience is the foundation of everything we do in Bali today. It doesn't fade: it's what trained us.

The archive of that work, the method behind it and the limits of the assistance now offered are set out on Renovation Budapest.

The real difficulty, said honestly

The biggest obstacle was never the property market itself. It was construction labor. Across our projects, the most persistent difficulty was finding and retaining reliable construction teams: repeated delays, contractors walking away mid-project, occasional insolvencies, work that had to be redone because the standard was not there. Every time, the final cost of the operation suffered. The contractor checks, staged payments and supervision rules are detailed in our renovation guide.

It's a feature of the local labor market. It didn't depend on us.

Short-term rental, closed off

Meanwhile, regulation tightened the other side of the equation: rental yield. Since 1 January 2026, Budapest's 6th district has banned short-term rental outright. The decision was confirmed by Hungary's Supreme Court in November 2025, following a local referendum. A moratorium also freezes new registrations across the whole city until the end of 2026, and other districts are studying similar measures. Our Airbnb in Budapest 2026 guide separates what is banned, what remains possible and what should no longer be underwritten.

At the European level, the short-term rental transparency regulation, applicable since 20 May 2026, gives cities far more effective means of enforcing this kind of rule than before.

Budapest remains a solid place for building wealth. The tax framework hasn't changed: 15% tax on rental income, with a choice between substantiated actual expenses and a flat 10% allowance, and a taxable share of capital gains that decreases according to the calendar year of acquisition until it falls to zero from the fifth year following acquisition. Full details are in our FAQ. But living off short-term rental income there has become much harder than it was ten years ago.

Why Bali, concretely

Since our move to Bali in 2022, the Hungarian context has kept evolving. In June 2026, the new government began restricting work visas for certain non-EU nationalities, presented as a first step in a broader announced tightening. This change wasn't the reason for our choice, but it's another reminder that a market can never be read as a fixed reality. Our decision to diversify dates back to that move.

In Bali, we found an ecosystem of local crews that is far more available, provided you set clear procedures, train, and supervise on the ground. What changes the game isn't the absence of difficulty, it's the ability to build a stable organization around the project. The regulatory framework, once the right permits and the right structure are in place, leaves room to do what we know how to do: designing and operating properties for private hospitality, rather than managing sites in crisis. Bali now allows us to bring together, within one activity, what Budapest taught us in separate stages: reading the land, development, compliance, construction oversight, and operations after handover.

The next chapter is not a Budapest agency transplanted to Bali. It is an owner-side development office that keeps the decision thread connected from site and specialist appointments through delivery and operational readiness. Bee My Guest is appointed separately for operations when required.