Are you seriously suggesting that Manhattan and San Francisco are representative of the housing markets of the entire US?
The average cost of a newly built detached house in Germany in 2008 was $320,540USD. The average cost of same in the United States in 2008 was $292,600[1].
Yes, I did compare, but not aggressively. What's your source?
[1] Bulwien Gesa via "Global Property Guide", and the US Government, respectively.
My source is living in Austria, which has a very similar housing market to Germany & having friends in California & New York who pay $2000 a month for an apartment nobody here would pay even half (maybe not even a third or a quarter) of that for.
And there are also much cheaper cities in Germany, I was comparing the most expensive in both countries since you talked about major US metro areas.
Pretty sure that even if you go down the ladder and compare Seattle/Miami/San Diego to Hamburg/Berlin/Cologne or whatever their German counterparts are German housing is still cheaper.
EDIT: I see you changed your comment while I was replying. You're right that if you compare suburban housing (detached houses) the US is cheaper. But if we are talking about metropolitan housing it's a different story. Also, relatively few people live in detached houses in Germany - these do not represent the average household like they do in the US.
I don't think we are at a disagreement, because I don't think we are comparing the same thing. I am talking about metropolitan life (apartment, central location in a big city) while you are talking about housing in general (which in the US mostly comprises houses in suburbs).
Don't let actual research statistics and my actual argument (US v Germany, not Berlin v NYC) get in the way of your life experience.
Honestly, it's not that hard to actually gather the statistics and muster an argument based on evidence. Every major metro area tracks these numbers.
Having just replied to another comment with 4 minutes of Google research to establish the rough parity between the cost of the Berlin rental market with that of Chicago, the third largest city in the US, I'm comfortable supposing right back at you that you're wrong, and that housing in Germany simply isn't significantly cheaper than it is in the US, despite the fact that it is the single largest component of the typical cost of living and the fact that on average Germans earn less than Americans.
And, sorry, no, I'm talking about major metro, not suburbs.
And, sorry, no, I'm talking about
major metro, not suburbs.
The average cost of a newly built
**detached house** in Germany
There are practically no detached houses in major metros in Germany, except in the very outskirts of the city & suburbs.
The few exceptions to that rule are extremely expensive. This is why the comparison is not 100% apt - detached houses are a common form of housing major US cities but very uncommon in major German cities.
These numbers don't take the lifetime of the houses into account. Without having actual data I would say German houses have a higher lifetime than US counterparts. In Europe, and especially in Germany, houses are usually built not for a decade, but for multiple decades (more robust houses, better insulation etc.). I am not sure if this also applies to most American houses. Do the numbers then still reflect the actual price?
The average house in Oak Park is many, many decades old. I don't know what Europeans think of us, but I hope there isn't a stereotype that we live in disposable houses!
What does "many, many decades old" mean? You do realize that there are people living in houses in Europe that have existed longer than the US has been a country, right?
You do live in disposable houses. Have you seen how a house in the US is built? The walls are made of what are called 2"x4"s [1], spaced 1.5' apart. If you've ever been to Lowes or one of those kinds of places and seen insulation you'll see why. Insulation comes in big rolls 1.5' wide. Once the insulation is in sheetrock is put on the inside and blackboard on the outside. If the home is a brick it will then have bricks laid in front of the blackboard with a strip of plastic in between because of the moisture, otherwise they just put siding on.
And that's it. When I explain this to people in Europe the reaction is always the same. First they look at me like they don't believe me, then they exclaim "so that's why they always fall over in high winds". There is a story over here about a German who build a German-style home on the east coast. When the inevitable hurricane came the only damage his home suffered was from the debris of the cheap American homes that fell apart hitting his house.
[1] It's actually 1.5"x3.5". I believe they are counting the eventual siding as part of the size.
I'm pretty sure tptacek knows how houses are built, loewenskind. I believe his point, though, is that not all of us live in disposable houses - just all the poor schmucks who have a house built after WWII, really. I have a carriage house apartment that shows a bit of the transition; it was built in 1946. Instead of slats under the plaster, it has sort of horizontal strips of sheet rock, over which plaster was applied.
Most of our workforce - including everybody who did plaster - was gone for several years. Then they all came back and had the GI Bill to buy cheap houses. The market spoke, and we're left with a lot of people who know how to build cheap houses.
Now, my house is built of three layers of brick, made right here in town in a factory long gone. Its interior walls are 2x4 studs that actually measure two inches by four inches, and are roughly the consistency of iron after their 130-year drying period. (They still smell nice when drilled for wiring, though - imagine that!) There is half an inch of real plaster on that. You cannot harm this house.
I should tell you, though, that drywall is gaining popularity in Europe as well. It's just so cheap and quick, you see.
>I should tell you, though, that drywall is gaining popularity in Europe as well. It's just so cheap and quick, you see.
What part of Europe? In the parts of Europe I'm familiar with people seem smarter about real savings. For example if you build a pile-of-sticks US style house, yes it will initially cost very little. But maintenance, heating, cooling, etc., etc. will cost a great deal more for the whole time you have the house. Perhaps if utility costs were so incredibly cheap like they are in the US people wouldn't think about it as much.
England. They generally use a drywall with plaster veneer for new construction there - DIY plaster searches generally turn up a lot of English sites. And a few American ones as well.
I'm not saying I've ever seen a studs-and-drywall approach in Europe, no. In Hungary things tend to just be concrete or block or brick construction, and wood is used for looks. This is partly because wood is really expensive in Europe, since the Phoenicians cut down their forests, mostly. We've got Canada.
I wouldn't be surprised to see a light steel interior frame wall with drywall and plaster on it, though.
Ah yes, you consider England part of Europe. ;) From what I can see the UK is fully embracing the ways of the US for better (e.g. good restaurants/service) and worse (e.g. cheap crap favored over quality in many cases).
I don't know what this has to do with any part of the actual discussion we're having, so I'm not going to bother engaging it. The houses most people in my neighborhood --- actually, in Chicago in general --- seem to live in will last longer than their lifetime, so the "disposability" of our houses isn't a factor in housing costs.
Perhaps in Chicago itself. But Chicago metro consists of suburbs that, yes, are chock-full of the disposable houses you think are atypical for American construction.
I used to have a house built in the late 60's, in Bloomington IN. By no means was it atypical. It was a ranch on a slab, 2x4 stud construction, drywall inside, and Godawful cheap paperboard siding. The windows were aluminum frames and had what I can only assume was a negative R value.
In Europe, people just don't build that way. Well, out in the boondocks, people might build a shack like that - but not in actual cities. Certainly not in a city the size of Bloomington. It's not a stereotype that Americans live in disposable houses, you see: it's just reality.
What is has to do with is: a house that costs e.g. $200k in the US is almost certainly more expensive than a $200k house in Germany because the German house is almost certainly better built (which costs more money, is worth more as materials, costs less to maintain, etc.).
The difference in house quality also has other effects. In the US the insulation is poor enough that you probably have to have either AC or heating on year round. In our house we don't even have AC (never missed it) and the temperature has to remain below 0C for a few days before we have to turn the heater on (or we can just invite a bunch of friends over).
The average cost of a newly built detached house in Germany in 2008 was $320,540USD. The average cost of same in the United States in 2008 was $292,600[1].
Yes, I did compare, but not aggressively. What's your source?
[1] Bulwien Gesa via "Global Property Guide", and the US Government, respectively.