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My source is living in Austria, which has a very similar housing market to Germany & having friends in California & New York who pay $2000 a month for an apartm
by ido 16y ago
My source is living in Austria, which has a very similar housing market to Germany & having friends in California & New York who pay $2000 a month for an apartment nobody here would pay even half (maybe not even a third or a quarter) of that for.
And there are also much cheaper cities in Germany, I was comparing the most expensive in both countries since you talked about major US metro areas.
Pretty sure that even if you go down the ladder and compare Seattle/Miami/San Diego to Hamburg/Berlin/Cologne or whatever their German counterparts are German housing is still cheaper.
EDIT: I see you changed your comment while I was replying. You're right that if you compare suburban housing (detached houses) the US is cheaper. But if we are talking about metropolitan housing it's a different story. Also, relatively few people live in detached houses in Germany - these do not represent the average household like they do in the US.
I don't think we are at a disagreement, because I don't think we are comparing the same thing. I am talking about metropolitan life (apartment, central location in a big city) while you are talking about housing in general (which in the US mostly comprises houses in suburbs).
- tptacek 16y agoDon't let actual research statistics and my actual argument (US v Germany, not Berlin v NYC) get in the way of your life experience. Honestly, it's not that hard to actually gather the statistics and muster an argument based on evidence. Every major metro area tracks these numbers. Having just replied to another comment with 4 minutes of Google research to establish the rough parity between the cost of the Berlin rental market with that of Chicago, the third largest city in the US, I'm comfortable supposing right back at you that you're wrong, and that housing in Germany simply isn't significantly cheaper than it is in the US, despite the fact that it is the single largest component of the typical cost of living and the fact that on average Germans earn less than Americans. And, sorry, no, I'm talking about major metro, not suburbs.
- eru 16y agoBerlin is poorer than German average. So I'd take comparisons of Berlin with major metropolitan areas in the US with a grain of salt.
- ido 16y agoAnd, sorry, no, I'm talking about major metro, not suburbs. The average cost of a newly built **detached house** in Germany There are practically no detached houses in major metros in Germany, except in the very outskirts of the city & suburbs. The few exceptions to that rule are extremely expensive. This is why the comparison is not 100% apt - detached houses are a common form of housing major US cities but very uncommon in major German cities.