Flats for rent in VIII. Józsefváros

Józsefváros stretches from the National Museum and Kálvin tér out to Kerepesi and Orczy út, and it is really three or four districts stacked next to each other. The Palotanegyed, between Múzeum körút and József körút, has the university library, the Szabó Ervin library in the Wenckheim palace, Mikszáth Kálmán tér and a run of cafés on Krúdy and Bródy Sándor utca. It is now among the more expensive addresses in Pest and many of its flats have been carefully restored.

Beyond the Grand Boulevard the district was for decades the byword for a rough part of town, and parts of it still are. The Corvin quarter was rebuilt from around 2005 into a corridor of new blocks, offices and the Corvin Plaza; the streets between there and Rákóczi tér followed. The Magdolna and Orczy quarters, roughly between Népszínház utca, Fiumei út and Baross utca, have been the target of renewal programmes for twenty years and have improved, but some streets around Mátyás tér and Teleki tér remain visibly poor, with dilapidated buildings and social problems that a new facade does not hide.

Rents here are lower than in districts VI, VII and IX for comparable flats, and that gap is the whole reason the district has drawn students and younger renters. The trade-off is that you need to know the streets, not just the postcode.

The Palotanegyed and the boulevard streets have the classic Pest tenement with courtyard and gang, often with a renovated staircase and sometimes a retrofitted lift. Flats are high-ceilinged and can be large; many were split into two or three smaller ones, so check whether the kitchen and bathroom were built where the plumbing allows. In the Corvin quarter and along Práter utca you get 2005 to 2020 new builds: smaller rooms, underground parking, district or gas central heating, lifts, and higher common cost that usually includes the building's own security and gardening.

Outside the boulevard the older stock varies from restored to unsafe, and a freshly painted flat can sit in a building with a crumbling courtyard. Look at the staircase, the courtyard and the entrance door, and ask who else lives in the house. Ground-floor and half-basement flats are common here and cheap for a reason: damp and no light. Heating is mostly gas convector; a few estates have district heating with a fixed monthly charge.