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>Housing is already affordable in the United States compared to other countries when you compare median house price to median income. Ditto. As an European I e
by ChuckNorris89 5y ago
>Housing is already affordable in the United States compared to other countries when you compare median house price to median income.
Ditto. As an European I envy how affordable real estate is in the US compared to Germany for example. My US boss at the time had bought a nice big house with a garden in the suburbs of the Dallas-FW area, way cheaper than something similar would have cost in the suburbs of Munich, where our office was.
Case in point, most of our US colleagues had big houses in Texas which they owned, while most of the Munich team lived in small apartments which they had to rent. Quality of life is nice in Munich, but the real estate market there is crazy compared how good the US has it.
- razoroccam 5y agoYou're missing that houses in USA are basically built with wood whereas in EU its bricks and concrete, that makes a huge difference in price.
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoThe insane real estate prices in some parts of Europe are mostly due (besides the monetary policies, NIMBYsm, regulations, and inherited wealth) to the scarcity of land in that desirable location, and less about the quality of what's built on it. And I'm not even talking about beach front properties in the south of France. Ive seen many old houses for sale in Germany for ludicrous money, that you'd basically have to tear down and build something livable.
- tormeh 5y agoConstruction costs are negligible compared to land costs in urban areas. And the cost of land is set by demand.
- jazzyk 5y agoConstruction costs have very little to do with current asking prices. It is all about what the market can bear (and it can bear a lot these days, thanks to incessant money printing)
- missedthecue 5y agoBuild a european spec house in Dallas and it will still be way cheaper.
- helloworld732 5y ago>As an European I envy how affordable real estate is in the US compared to Germany for example You're comparing apples to oranges. You're comparing one of the cheapest major cities in the US to one of the more expensive cities in Europe. According to Zillow the median home price in Dallas is just under $300,000 but the median home price in Seattle where I'm currently renting and trying to buy a home is 3 times that at $900,000. So please don't tell me how good I have it in the US with real estate. With how large and diversified the US is, a more fair comparison would be to compare Dallas real estate prices to say a city like Bucharest and compare Munich real estate prices to a major US city on the west coast (San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle) or the northeast (DC, New York City, Boston).
- Jyaif 5y agoIn Seattle, the average sale price per square foot is $535 [1] while in Paris, the average sale price per square meter is 10208€, which is twice as high. Prices in Paris are pretty much the same as the prices of SF, but the salaries are way lower (3x lower, and the taxes are almost as high as the ones in California). So yeah, I'd say you have it pretty good in the US :-) [1] https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/seattle-real-estate-market/#:~:text=The%20median%20list%20price%20of,are%2095%20neighborhoods%20in%20Seattle https://www.noradarealestate.com/blog/seattle-real-estate-ma....
- VincentEvans 5y ago1 sqft is about 1/10th of 1 sqm. Even by your own stats Paris looks affordable compared to Seattle. Unless you made mistakes in the units of the stats you provided.
- endisneigh 5y agoYour math is wrong, Paris is still twice as expensive
- missedthecue 5y ago10.7 sq ft in a sq m. 10.7 x $535 is $5,724 per square meter in Seattle. Which is less than 1/2 of the $11,686 per square meter in Paris.