I find the cultural differences with respect to home ownership fascinating. In the US, people often own their own homes. Rarely do they own homes that other pe

I find the cultural differences with respect to home ownership fascinating. In the US, people often own their own homes. Rarely do they own homes that other people live in. Apartments are typically owned a single owner/landlord (condos are different). Owning is a common dream, less so in cities (particularly New York). In the UK, home ownership and the property market is an obsession. It is a common topic of conversation. People are heavily invested in their properties and often seek to buy more of them. There is a strong attitude of "if I don't buy now I'll never be able to afford to live here", particularly in London and the Southeast (less so now I suspect). The North and West are somewhat different. The market is highly speculative. In Switzerland, the property market is essentially controlled. There is little real estate speculation. Transaction costs are high. Capital gains taxes on properties can be brutal, which strongly discourages speculation. Renting is not frowned upon. For tax reasons, people often buy houses and never pay them off. In Switzerland you get a tax exemption for interest but you also get deemed income from the effective rent the property is worth. In Australia, owning one's house is a cultural obsession. People often end up owning multiple properties. There are few apartment buildings owned by one owner (it's much more like the American condo system). I think of all the systems I've personally experienced, I like the Swiss system the most. It treats property as something you need to live not a financial instrument to speculate on. That system isn't applicable everywhere however. Switzerland is unique in that it is fairly affluent, has a small population and very restrictive immigration. So somewhere like the US has >40 times the population so even excluding immigration, domestic movements of people can be incredibly large creating market pressures in places like New York that Switzerland will simply never experience. Some years ago I saw an article (I'm sadly unable to find but the topic is covered elsewhere in depth) in the UK which showed that the rate of home ownership was inversely proportional to economic growth. The idea was that home ownership reduces labour market flexibility (which it clearly does). I don't know if the trend still holds up. In Australia for example a family home can easily cost $1 million in Sydney. If the household income is $200,000 and that family wishes to move to, say, Melbourne and buy a new house they'll pay $20-50,000 in realtor fees and $50,000+ in stamp duty on buying the new house so they need to make back nearly $100,000 of after-tax income just to break even. Sadly stamp duty is a cash cow for state governments in Australia so isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Yet I think it's a real problem. Transaction costs need to be relatively low. Financing requirements need to be relatively to limit rampant speculation, particularly in overheated markets.