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Hello, I've always dreamed about living in the USA and applied for a green card.
I've found that it's cheaper to buy an apartment in St Louis than say Bratislava considering you'll get a higher salary at St Louis. How is that even possible? I just can't, why are we robbed so much in Europe?
And with similar wages, the square meter for an apartment in Minneapolis is almost 400% cheaper than in Munich, considering Germany is one of the cheapest European countries . I used a fairly reliable website comparing costs of living. Sure, food and healthcare are more expensive in the USA but you also get less density and less public transport use (I'd rather walk than use public transport or get a car but European streets are too dense with people to walk undisturbed so I'd rather drive but the car taxes and prices are crazy).
Hello, I've always dreamed about living in the USA and applied for a green card.
I've found that it's cheaper to buy an apartment in St Louis than say Bratislava considering you'll get a higher salary at St Louis. How is that even possible? I just can't, why are we robbed so much in Europe?
And with similar wages, the square meter for an apartment in Minneapolis is almost 400% cheaper than in Munich, considering Germany is one of the cheapest European countries. I used a fairly reliable website comparing costs of living. Sure, food and healthcare are more expensive in the USA but you also get less density and less public transport use (I'd rather walk than use public transport or get a car but European streets are too dense with people to walk undisturbed so I'd rather drive but the car taxes and prices are crazy).
It is less expensive for several reasons, less construction constraints (insulation, materials, passive housing, etc.), more land available but a lot of urban sprawl (car dependent), less constraints for real estate loans (but subprime mortgage crisis).
planning laws for construction of apartments and houses are much more strict in europe than in the mid west of the usa
sprawl is the end result but outside the cities of new york , san francisco , boston , seatle , housing in america is considerably cheaper than in europe for the most part , i know ive left outside expensive american cities but the point stands
What, you mean you can't buy something like this for $60k (USD) in Europe?
Old by US standards at 1930, HUGE to me at 2,220sq/ft (204sq/meter) but it's considered tiny by US standards. The reason it's cheap is because I'm in the country, there's limited employment (not none, just limited), and the school system is worse than 'normal' (which is pretty bad by World standards).
Hello, I've always dreamed about living in the USA and applied for a green card.
I've found that it's cheaper to buy an apartment in St Louis than say Bratislava considering you'll get a higher salary at St Louis. How is that even possible? I just can't, why are we robbed so much in Europe?
And with similar wages, the square meter for an apartment in Minneapolis is almost 400% cheaper than in Munich, considering Germany is one of the cheapest European countries . I used a fairly reliable website comparing costs of living. Sure, food and healthcare are more expensive in the USA but you also get less density and less public transport use (I'd rather walk than use public transport or get a car but European streets are too dense with people to walk undisturbed so I'd rather drive but the car taxes and prices are crazy).
Yeah the US has very cheap prices overall and much cheaper housing than Europe or Australia or Canada for that matter. Factors I think are:
- Less restrictions on construction
- Cheaper labor, often illegal Mexican
- We have a lot of buildable land and availability of water
- In some areas, high property taxes limits or drives down the prices
- Some areas, such as St. Louis, have high crime and people have left those areas
- The cheaper areas often have worse climate or poor schools
At the end of the day, it's supply and demand based pricing and the higher demand areas carry higher prices.
Yeah the US has very cheap prices overall and much cheaper housing than Europe or Australia or Canada for that matter. Factors I think are:
- Less restrictions on construction
- Cheaper labor, often illegal Mexican
- We have a lot of buildable land and availability of water
- In some areas, high property taxes limits or drives down the prices
- Some areas, such as St. Louis, have high crime and people have left those areas
- The cheaper areas often have worse climate or poor schools
At the end of the day, it's supply and demand based pricing and the higher demand areas carry higher prices.
Agree. End of the day, supply and demand is right.
It’s the price of land and how much sought after the location is
along with amenities, services, good paying employment opportunities.
Varies wildly, especially in the US, from very expensive Manhattan to very cheap St. Louis,
there are very good reasons for the differences.
Also quality, USA is a lot of quantity over quality, huge stick framed shoddy built houses,
most builders only build to code, everything else is an upgrade.
In europe, smaller homes but more pride/quality.
In the USA you can get both size and quality if you pay the big bucks for it.
Not to forget that even with the, generally, much higher prices of Real Estate in Europe, the incidence of homeownership across the EU is typically greater than the homeownership rate in the United States.
The rate of homeownership across Europe is strongly correlated with the share of homeowners without a mortgage or a housing loan. European countries with higher rates of homeownership also have greater shares of homeowners without a housing loan or a mortgage, and outstanding housing debt. Also the owner-occupancy rates exceed the homeownership rate in the US.
Lots of Americans don't 100% own their (paid off) houses, but make the "ownership" stats look like they are "homeowners".
The 2013 homeownership rate in the US was 65.1%. The proportion of owner-occupied homes that did not have a mortgage, obtained from the 2013 American Housing Survey, was only 36%. Probably lower now.
(I don't have more recent stats, but I don't think there is a substantial difference)
In Europe, most people buy house for life (their life, and the next generations). In the US most people buy (start a mortgage) a house with meaning to resell it in few years, then "buy" another house, and start new mortgage again.
Many people never really own a house (same with cars) but pay mortgage all their life.
The "ownership" idea has completely different meaning.
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. I used a fairly reliable website comparing costs of living. Sure, food and healthcare are more expensive in the USA but you also get less density and less public transport use (I'd rather walk than use public transport or get a car but European streets are too dense with people to walk undisturbed so I'd rather drive but the car taxes and prices are crazy).
Go !
