Of course most probably by taking a mortgage, but still. I’ve been getting anxious recently that Warsaw might become too expensive at one point and I might never be able to buy a flat here or in the surrounding area, but on the other hand, wages are going up as well. So I’m wondering how is it in other European capitals. Is the housing prices to wages ratio good enough for a person earning average wage to be able to save up for the 20% or so down payment and be able to take out a mortgage? Not necessarily within the city centre because that’s obviously out of reach even here, but anywhere within the city or even in the smaller surrounding cities, if they exist, as long as it’s a max 1h commute to the capital’s centre, it counts.
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Alone? Yeah if you have rich parents lol or have saved up for years. Like spending near to nothing on any pleasures and what not to get a loan. Well good luck finding an apartment too, that’s probably harder? If you buy one outside Stockholm its a fair bit easier
You mean only one person with average wage? No way. Maybe two people with average wage together can afford a tiny flat in not so nice neighbourhood, like [this one for example](https://www.sreality.cz/detail/prodej/byt/2+kk/praha-stodulky-hostinskeho/1560885340#img=11&fullscreen=true).
Thet would be a hard NO, if they want to be able to buy food, that is. They would find a place to rent in the neighbouring towns, though.
Well, technically, yes.
According to this story, https://www.rtlnieuws.nl/economie/life/artikel/5249107/alleenstaanden-modaal-inkomen-huizenmarkt-daling-beschikbare-woningen
a modal salary will let one take a mortgage of around 185,000, which, when entered in a popular apartment search site as the maximum price in Amsterdam, will yield two results.
This is one of them: https://www.funda.nl/koop/amsterdam/appartement-42672435-bouvigne-27-4/
Not sure if it’s what you had in mind though.
I just checked and cheapest apartment currently on sale in Helsinki costs 103 000 €. It’s a 26sqm studio apartment, located in a suburb on the outskirts of Helsinki, in a building built in 1970 and the condition is described as satisfying. [Here](https://asunnot.oikotie.fi/myytavat-asunnot?pagination=1&sortBy=price_asc&locations=%5B%5B64,6,%22Helsinki%22%5D%5D&cardType=100&habitationType%5B%5D=1) is a link to search results for cheapest apartments in Helsinki.
That would probably be accessible for a person earning an average wage. The apartments in more central parts of the city wouldn’t probably be though.
The median UK income in 2021 was £31,285 (according to Statistica). With a maximum income multiplier for a mortgage of 5x annual salary (most banks don’t go this high), that would be a mortgage of £156425. Even with a £50,000 deposit – its going to be insanely difficult to buy somewhere in London.
You might find something an hour or so commute away, but realistically I don’t think its possible without an additional person on the mortgage application or wealthy parents.
On a single persons average salary, in the actual city, likely not. Two salaries, like for a couple, that should be possible but not easy.
Renting is relatively affordable in Vienna, buying is certainly not.
A shit one for rent – yes; mortgage payment would likely be the same or slightly lower, so affordable, but it would be hard to save for a downpayment, especially if living here as well because the cost of living is higher, too.
I think so. The m2 price seems to be between 1800 and 8000 € depending on the item with the median being around 3000 €/m2 (that’s higher than I thought, [looked at](https://www.kv.ee/?act=search.simple&last_deal_type=1&page=13&orderby=cdwl&deal_type=1&county=1&search_type=new&parish=1061&rooms_min=2&rooms_max=4&area_min=45&area_max=100) 45-100m2 apartments with 2-4 rooms).
For a cheaper 125 000 – 150 000 € apartment you would have to save up ca 25 000 – 30 000 € for the usual 20% downpayment. The average monthly bruto salary in Tallinn was 1 745 € according to the latest data and that would mean getting a little under 1 400 € to your bank account. So depending on your income and saving skills you probably need to save up for 2-6 years.
«The nurse index» measures how many apartments within a city a single nurse (someone with a average/common salary) can buy. 1,3% of the available apartments in Oslo can be bought with a nurse salary in 2021. Some of the cities in commuting distance to Oslo, such as Drammen, have a lot more affordable apartments (18,3%). Other cities such as Asker/Bærum have fewer available apartments (1,1%).
Yeah I’d say so, definitely in the outer parts of the city but even some smaller places nearer the centre are possible.
We complain a lot about it but if you look about theres plenty of reasonable buys to be had.
Wages in the capital are generally higher than average
Average as in mean? It was about 700$ in 2020. Median salary was lower. If you live like a monk on 10$ a day, you will have 350$ left. The cheapest 12sqm studio in Moscow costs about 35000$. That’s 100 months with 0 interest rate. A mortgage with no downpayment at 7.4% means in about 13 years of pure buckwheat diet you will own 12 square metres of living space that doesn’t even count as a domicile. Oh, wait, I forgot about the utilities. Make it twenty years.
And no one will give you a mortgage at just 7.4% if you have no downpayment for the cheapest studio in Moscow. At 8.6% you’re looking at 30 years of debt slavery, but no one will give you a mortgage for that either. Credit cards charge 15% interest, good luck maxing some of them and paying the debt back. Unless you live for a 100 years because you must be an ascetic monk to survive on 350$ in Moscow.
tldr lol no
You could rent a apartment, rent prices are fairly stable due to regulations. The waiting lists for rentable apartments in Stockholm are only around 20 years!
With that 1 hour radius you suggest, yes, definitely. But it’s still hard.
Munich is one of the most expensive cities in central Europe, real estate wise, so especially families are forced to move out of the city. But if you’re talking about one single person earning average salary trying to buy a decent 1 person flat (say 50 sqm), it would still work out.
Also, banks these days will give you credit with less than 20% down payment at still really good rates (below 2% for sure).
Actually you can find cheap housing in Athens city center depending on how low are your living standards … Here the cheapest apartment i could find 19m2 below ground level: https://www.spitogatos.gr/aggelia/1111816304
“As long as it’s a max 1h commute to the city center” You can go pretty far and still fit this criteria, for example in Melun (50km south of Paris) you have the R line that goes to the center of Paris in only 30 minutes. You could go even farther for cheaper cities to live in and still get to the center in under an hour.
Therefore I’d say yes, even though it would be impossible to have a proper flat inside Paris itself.
Yes, I think so. Provided it isn’t in the city centre or in a fancy suburb.
At first I thought you meant renting it, I would have said yes, but I see you said “mortgage” so I assume you’re thinking of actually buying one?
So the average wage in Denmark is actually pretty high… After taxes the average wage is roughly 3.500€ / month (taxes are individual and depends on a lot of factors, so roughly…)
3.500€ is certainly enough to rent an apartment fairly centrally in Copenhagen and still be able to afford food and bills. Of course it also depends on size and exact location.
If we are talking about buying stuff it gets more complicated, one thing is whether you can afford it, another thing is if any bank is actually willing to lend you the money!
So price depends on size and location, so I just looked up apartments in copenhagen, if you want to buy a small apartment, at least 60m², since we’re talking about 1 income, 1 person will be living there, this should be okay? Prices are starting roughly at 400k €, let’s just round it up to 500k.
So for the technicalities, first of all you can maximum take out a mortgage of 80% on the value, you need to pay at least 5% of the amount up front, then the remaining 15% you can take as a bank loan, which has a higher interest than the regular mortgage. So you need to have saved at the very least 25k € in this case (500k sales price).
With the current interest rates (have gone up recently) you’ll be paying 2,5% on the mortgage and 5% on the bank loan. It will cost around 2.330€ per month… That is if the bank is willing to lend you that money! That means you’d still have some 1.200€ left per month.
* Then you have to pay property tax (probably around 400-500€ per month? ^((Guesstimate, I live elsewhere)))
* Mandatory insurance would probably be at least another 50-60€ per month ^((couldn’t calculate actual price, guesstimating from how much I pay)).
* Heating, electricity, water would probably be at least another 200€ per month
* Cost of food will probably be at least another 200€ / month
* Phone/internet, another 50-60€/month
Total absolute minimum monthly expenses: 900€
That leaves you at best 300€ month for TV, health insurance, life insurance, insurance against theft (not mandatory), public transport, car, travels, savings etc.
Then again probably only 20% of the population is earning at least the average wage, that means that 80% of the population would not be able to afford an apartment in Copenhagen (living alone) and the ones that are right on the average can barely make it work with one wage alone, that is if any banks will even lend them that money!
Of course savings and different loan types can affect that; if you have at least 40% of the amount you can take out loans where you only pay interests and not any actual installments for 30 years. That will work out a lot cheaper per month, but will leave you with a huge debt after 30 years, or you have to sell the place.
Single person earning average wage can’t even buy house in the village. Flats in capital are definitely not for people earning an average wage lol.
Wow! you were talking aobut buying it, not renting!!!!
Reading the title I was about to tell you, well, a couple, both earning the average, may pay the rent for a non fancy flat.
But a single person? Buying a flat in Barcelona with an average wage? Really really hard. Unless you want to live in almost unlivable conditions.
Rent yes, Vienna offers a wide array of publicly funded apartments either in buildings owned by the city or non profit cooperatives. They tend to be rather affordable and about 1/3 of Viennese live in them.
Buying has become ever more difficult, Austria has seen the biggest hike in housing prices in the EU in the past decade, more than doubling the cost per square meter. For an average earner, buying an apartment has become near impossible, unless they get an inheritance or made big money with crypto.
My wife and me both earn above average. 20 years ago we might have been able to buy a nice house, now we are just able to finance a small row house with a tiny strip of green and we were lucky to do it a few years ago. Now it would be unaffordable.
Not a chance in hell unfortunately, and it is getting even more unattainable every year and probably will take a long long time to fix.
No, never. I read somwhere that the prices increase by 1000SEK/100€ PER HOUR
Probably?
But if you do that, your most valuable posession will be Spotify Premium
No, but that should not be the case – usually the capital is the richest part of a country, not the average part. An average wage should be able to buy an average house.
> as long as it’s a max 1h commute to the capital’s centre
This describes almost the entire country, so I would say yes
I assume you mean median wage? (middle of the three) and not an average wage. wich is a bit higher than the middle of the three(the bottom are not able to push the average down as much as the top are pushing it up)
Just in the middle of the city center? No. Unless we are talking about a family with 2 average incomes, then in some neighborhoods, yes. A single average income in the outskirts? Yes.
Median income in Berlin is about €16k and median rent on a one-room apartment is about €800, which is 60%, so yeah. Affordable if not comfortable.
EDIT: looked again and 16k might be a couple of years out of date. €18k is perhaps more accurate now.
As far as buying goes, you used to be able to say that for German if you can afford to rent it you can afford to buy it (i.e. mortgage repayment rates are roughly the same as rents), but that may no longer be true. Down payments were not always required by banks here, when we were house hunting.
On an average Lisbon wage? Not in the city center, and you would have to SAVE (like 30% of your paycheck save) from 5-10 years, but yeah, you could. I’m talking getting an apartment that is on the further ends of the metro and a 1 bed though. Nothing with actual quality of life or anything, unless you have parents that help you with the down payment.
The Belgian capital, Brussels, is on average cheaper than the other major cities (Ghent, Antwerp).
Many people live in Brussels, on unemployment or “solidarity income”, much more so than in other cities in the country.
There’s also a lot of people living there paying 1500EUR a month to live in a fancy area.
It’s a mix