Huh. Now those are interesting numbers. My memory tells me that's not what it felt like when I lived in the US. by your stats I'd have expected my US rent to h

Huh. Now those are interesting numbers. My memory tells me that's not what it felt like when I lived in the US. by your stats I'd have expected my US rent to have eaten closer to 15% than 30% of my take home pay, like it does here, at least if the rents were a competitive enough market to track closely with mortgages. But that's not what I remember ever happening, nor did I spend most of my life in major metros -- my adult working life was almost entirely in Madison, WI, which is about the size of my current Tampere. Rent ate up about 30% of my take home in both places. The apartment I currently rent is bigger than the apartment I rented back there as well, although it is a little older. I'd expect to have felt the pinch of such a vast price to net income ratio difference in my rent, at least a little bit. So... why haven't I? I have about as apples-to-apples a comparison as it is reasonable to make, right down to them both being heavy student towns.