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In European cities like London, Paris or Zurich, the supply of housing is so constrained that, barring something catastrophic like a war or a global financial c

In European cities like London, Paris or Zurich, the supply of housing is so constrained that, barring something catastrophic like a war or a global financial crisis, prices will never drop that much for that long. In fact, it's quite a big economic problem — there's little reason for the majority of people to put their savings into anything other than property, because it tends to be so reliable. And somewhere like London, renting a whole property is often just as expensive or more expensive that paying the equivalent mortgage would be. So you wouldn't even save any money by renting.

bane 10y ago
In a great many places, the rental rates are set to be about the same as if somebody just purchased the property and were about to pay mortgage payments. In the short term, the renter makes out, because the owner has to assume taxes and maintenance, but over the long term, the existing mortgage doesn't increase while rent does and the property owner starts to cover those costs and then starts to make money off of the property. Once the mortgage is paid off, the rental money is pure profit.
- sievebrain 10y ago
  I've lived in Switzerland for a decade. My rents have never gone up. They have gone down once though, because the law here mandates tying of rent to interest rates and when they are lowered, you can write to your landlord and demand a reduction. Unfortunately there are caveats. Last time I tried that, my landlord claimed that my rent was already lower than the market average for my area and thus I didn't qualify for the reduction.