what are your top 3 issues with berlin? germany and berlin always seemed to offer great quality of life. i’m from europe too. how can you not afford a house in germany with a 200k/year salary? for less than 500k you should be able to find something nice? even if you pay 50% tax. and you have 2 incomes.
in the US real estate on the east and west coast is insanely expensive and 1.5MM plus for a very basic house. nothing fancy and lower quality than in europe.
so the cheaper real estate is in the midwest where there is little infrastructure and very little access to the cultural systems like exist in europe.
i am on the west coast and love it here. but it has been extremely stressful and i will probably not be able to afford a house until i win the lottery or the startup game or maybe a very high up FAANG position. europe is just a different pace and stress level.
i will add to this that professional discrimination of women in europe is much less than in the US IMHO. important if your wife is working.
The price for small houses (often in terrible condition) around Berlin hovers in the range of 700-1000 T€, so if you don't have a lot of capital it can be hard. Banks like to charge freelancers a premium on the interest rate (as they can supposedly lose their income anytime, which often is just an excuse to extract more money from them...) or outright refuse to give them a loan unless they can provide a guarantee (e.g. an existing house to take as collateral), so definitely not easy.
But things might finally turn around a bit with the interest rate hike and looming recession, if you have some capital you might be able to grab some good real estate soon, at least if you don't have to be square in the center of Berlin (which will definitely stay expensive).
Totally with you regarding all points you made. I believe in a horrible recession not only in Germany but also Europe lasting for longer than just 2 or 3 years. I also do believe, that the totally overheated housing market will crash very badly, which might open up interesting opportunities, once it happened. Still, all the other problems remained. However, thanks for your thoughts.
Personally, I don't think housing prices will collapse unless there are mass bankruptcies (like 2008/9 in the US). Inflation is going to eat some of the housing prices gains, but people will just not put their house on the market for lower prices unless they have to.
I don't think many people will sell when their real estate agent tells them that they're house is now worth 200k less than last year (or the neighbor's house that just sold), they'll just keep paying the mortgage and wait for the market to improve.
I'm with you with a big European recession. But I'm not sure about a big enough crash of the housing market, I think they will do whatever to keep the price up
wow, 700K ... that is totally insane if that is actually true. years ago i visited the pankow area and it was dirt cheap. this was maybe around 2009 or so. so that is only a good 10 years ago.
in the US real estate on the east and west coast is insanely expensive and 1.5MM plus for a very basic house. nothing fancy and lower quality than in europe.
so the cheaper real estate is in the midwest where there is little infrastructure and very little access to the cultural systems like exist in europe.
i am on the west coast and love it here. but it has been extremely stressful and i will probably not be able to afford a house until i win the lottery or the startup game or maybe a very high up FAANG position. europe is just a different pace and stress level.
i will add to this that professional discrimination of women in europe is much less than in the US IMHO. important if your wife is working.