I have lived in Germany for 7 years. I hold a STEM master‘s degree and was working an industry job that paid market rate salaries. With 50k€ in savings I was still denied mortgages because 50k was just barely covering the additional purchase costs (such as realtor and notary fees).
For a modest condo with a small garden in a small-ish city in central Germany I would’ve had to work and pay the mortgage until I retired, because the average house was 600k EUR. And most of the properties sold at that price still needed significant renovations.
If that is not f^cking crazy, then I don’t know what is.
Yeah the salaries in Europe do not jive at all with the housing prices in major metros. At least in the US a STEM job is probably gonna pay north of 6 figures if you’re in a decent metro area. I live in the EU now and if I switched from freelancing for American clients to working a full time job here I would be taking a major pay cut to do it. The pay is god awful but rent is fairly comparable to where I used to live on the US west coast.
I dunno what you’re doing wrong but I bought an apartment in Germany a couple years ago and that wasn’t my experience at all. I saw plenty of nice places big enough for a family of three for 250-300k. We had a little bit more than 50k in savings and were able to buy something much bigger than we need with a large garden (we spent 440k), but could easily have gotten something big enough with 50k savings. We’re in a medium/large city but just not right in the middle, more towards the outskirts. Still only 15 mins bike ride to the centre though!
While the prices are surely very high, they are not that high everywhere. My sister just bought a small house with small garden in a smallish city (50k people living here) for 260k. And we are 30min train ride from the next major city
The point of my comment was not really that there are no cheaper options. The point is that I should be, by most measures, firmly middle class and should be able to afford to buy a house around the place where I work. It’s not Munich or Hamburg, and I was not looking for something close to the city center. I was just looking for a decent house for my family.
I have lived in Germany for 7 years. I hold a STEM master‘s degree and was working an industry job that paid market rate salaries. With 50k€ in savings I was still denied mortgages because 50k was just barely covering the additional purchase costs (such as realtor and notary fees).
For a modest condo with a small garden in a small-ish city in central Germany I would’ve had to work and pay the mortgage until I retired, because the average house was 600k EUR. And most of the properties sold at that price still needed significant renovations.
If that is not f^cking crazy, then I don’t know what is.
Yeah the salaries in Europe do not jive at all with the housing prices in major metros. At least in the US a STEM job is probably gonna pay north of 6 figures if you’re in a decent metro area. I live in the EU now and if I switched from freelancing for American clients to working a full time job here I would be taking a major pay cut to do it. The pay is god awful but rent is fairly comparable to where I used to live on the US west coast.
That’s not always the case. Plenty of engineers that I know make less than 6 figures in the urban Midwest.
Edit: By Urban Midwest I mean cities like Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, etc and their immediate surroundings.
I dunno what you’re doing wrong but I bought an apartment in Germany a couple years ago and that wasn’t my experience at all. I saw plenty of nice places big enough for a family of three for 250-300k. We had a little bit more than 50k in savings and were able to buy something much bigger than we need with a large garden (we spent 440k), but could easily have gotten something big enough with 50k savings. We’re in a medium/large city but just not right in the middle, more towards the outskirts. Still only 15 mins bike ride to the centre though!
You poor bastard
While the prices are surely very high, they are not that high everywhere. My sister just bought a small house with small garden in a smallish city (50k people living here) for 260k. And we are 30min train ride from the next major city
The point of my comment was not really that there are no cheaper options. The point is that I should be, by most measures, firmly middle class and should be able to afford to buy a house around the place where I work. It’s not Munich or Hamburg, and I was not looking for something close to the city center. I was just looking for a decent house for my family.