5 ms·

It's also worse in Norway, and not just that but even remote places in Norway. It's going to be everywhere, isn't it? Where exactly is housing cheap now?

brailsafe 3y ago
Very very remote places in Canada in terms of absolute price
dgellow 3y ago
You can find fairly cheap housing in East Germany (not Berlin of course). But that’s mostly because people don’t want to live there, there is way less economic activity.
misstuned 3y ago
Places with few jobs and a low quality-of-life. I live in a place like that now, a car-reliant northern England town where there's no transit service, it's not safe after 7pm and the locals will threaten to fight you if you look funny. Luckily I have a job, it's not as well paid as the same job in other areas but I'm employed and don't pay a huge housing cost. But I'm miserable, it's a horrible place to live (especially as a childless 30-something single person) and I'm looking to move somewhere that's nicer. I'm really struggling to do that, because trading up in areas is difficult, I'm looking at a doubling of housing costs (plus all the other costs of moving) in exchange for ~20-30% more pay in a more affluent area. There are a lot of people like me, trapped in crappy areas with low housing costs and unable to trade up despite being full-time employed. I feel like I just exist here, weekends are my escape but I need to escape forever.
rekoil 3y ago
Sweden is pretty crazy too.
Ekaros 3y ago
Finland isn't too bad outside the capital region. Some dead or dying places are so cheap that you can not even get loans to fix properties. Which itself is an different issue. Some reasonably growing areas have quite affordable old housing.
refurb 3y ago
Plenty of places in the US. I have family in Michigan. I checked home prices and you can still buy a house (not a condo), in a nice town with very good schools for $200,000. With property tax, insurance and mortgage your total home expense would be ~$1,000/month, even at today's interest rates. Plenty of jobs that pay $60,000 there, that's $7,000 per month take home if you're married with two wages earners, leaving $6,000 left over each month, or $60,000 per year.
- bombcar 3y ago
  You don’t even have to be in the sticks - you can find $200k-ish places within commuting distance of lots of “kind of dying but still big” cities if you will. You will often have weather to deal with. And if you’re young and willing, buying a fixer upper is still a workable strategy - and youtube makes this actually much more workable than even 20 years ago. Sweat equity works wonders. Part of the trick is that lots of jobs are not actually IN the city - they will be to one side, so live on the side that your job is.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    > You don’t even have to be in the sticks - you can find $200k-ish places within commuting distance of lots of “kind of dying but still big” cities if you will. This is why a few cities, like Pittsburg, have seen a resurgence -- cheap housing and the benefits of an actual city.
polski-g 3y ago
The world is running out of young people to build houses. The TFR for the entire would will be below replacement rate by 2034. Simultaneously, the world is getting stuffed with old people who do not want new houses constructed to inflate their own house's value.
- nephanth 3y ago
  Why build new houses in Western countries when they're mostly below replacement rates anyway?

brailsafe 3y ago

Very very remote places in Canada in terms of absolute price

dgellow 3y ago

You can find fairly cheap housing in East Germany (not Berlin of course). But that’s mostly because people don’t want to live there, there is way less economic activity.

misstuned 3y ago

Places with few jobs and a low quality-of-life. I live in a place like that now, a car-reliant northern England town where there's no transit service, it's not safe after 7pm and the locals will threaten to fight you if you look funny. Luckily I have a job, it's not as well paid as the same job in other areas but I'm employed and don't pay a huge housing cost. But I'm miserable, it's a horrible place to live (especially as a childless 30-something single person) and I'm looking to move somewhere that's nicer. I'm really struggling to do that, because trading up in areas is difficult, I'm looking at a doubling of housing costs (plus all the other costs of moving) in exchange for ~20-30% more pay in a more affluent area. There are a lot of people like me, trapped in crappy areas with low housing costs and unable to trade up despite being full-time employed. I feel like I just exist here, weekends are my escape but I need to escape forever.

rekoil 3y ago

Sweden is pretty crazy too.

Ekaros 3y ago

Finland isn't too bad outside the capital region. Some dead or dying places are so cheap that you can not even get loans to fix properties. Which itself is an different issue. Some reasonably growing areas have quite affordable old housing.

refurb 3y ago

Plenty of places in the US. I have family in Michigan. I checked home prices and you can still buy a house (not a condo), in a nice town with very good schools for $200,000. With property tax, insurance and mortgage your total home expense would be ~$1,000/month, even at today's interest rates. Plenty of jobs that pay $60,000 there, that's $7,000 per month take home if you're married with two wages earners, leaving $6,000 left over each month, or $60,000 per year.

bombcar 3y ago
You don’t even have to be in the sticks - you can find $200k-ish places within commuting distance of lots of “kind of dying but still big” cities if you will. You will often have weather to deal with. And if you’re young and willing, buying a fixer upper is still a workable strategy - and youtube makes this actually much more workable than even 20 years ago. Sweat equity works wonders. Part of the trick is that lots of jobs are not actually IN the city - they will be to one side, so live on the side that your job is.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  > You don’t even have to be in the sticks - you can find $200k-ish places within commuting distance of lots of “kind of dying but still big” cities if you will. This is why a few cities, like Pittsburg, have seen a resurgence -- cheap housing and the benefits of an actual city.

polski-g 3y ago

The world is running out of young people to build houses. The TFR for the entire would will be below replacement rate by 2034. Simultaneously, the world is getting stuffed with old people who do not want new houses constructed to inflate their own house's value.

nephanth 3y ago
Why build new houses in Western countries when they're mostly below replacement rates anyway?