kmanmx
Golden Master
- Messages
- 9,504
- Location
- Bonn, Deutschland
Well thanks to Biden my wages put me squarely in central middle class and I definitely don't think I'd have an easier time over there, especially with your first line. I can get approved for a 350k conventional loan with an 80k USD salary which even with massively inflated prices in my area will net me a nice 2300sqft 4 or 5 bedroom house in a new residential burb that has 2-5Gb fiber access. On the flip side, if I took that same loan and went back to the country (which I plan to do) it'll net me an acre or more of land with the same square footage mobile home. If I went with a used home a lot of these properties currently being sold even have nice 2-3 car separate garages, concrete foundations, renovated and modernized insides, a fence surrounding the entire property, and some of them even have powered gates for less than 300k. At the current conversion rate 200k will still get you relatively the same albeit not as nice but you'd easily be able to afford to upgrade everything within the next year or two after purchasing. There are many other areas that aren't as inflated as here in terms of the housing market.
Easier in respect that there is more freedom to screw up. It's a lot harder to get fired at your job here - I think in France the redundancy process is about two years long. and if you do lose your job or have a medical emergency then you are going to be okay due to higher level of state support versus US. My friend lost his job in Spain and was entitled to 70% of his full salary for 18 months paid by the state. To be honest the UK is one of the worst in Europe for unemployment payout, but many european countries like Spain are very generous. But yeah, there are downsides for sure, most everything is more expensive here, and salaries are lower.
I guess you could say in the US you can climb higher up the tree as an average person, but you also have further to fall.