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What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

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Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#441

Post by badpun »

BossingAround wrote: post #439
ricardobayes wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are able to work remotely, Spain is fantastic at the moment. Relatively low real estate rent/purchase prices. You can still get a nice 3 bedroom house with a pool under 200k by the Mediterranean sea (of course well, not in Marbella). There are some surprisingly high-tech jobs locally as well, the space industry is booming right now. Lots of programming jobs in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia even if you don't s…

Anecdata, but the vast majority of European new hires I'm seeing in my team are from Spain (though they are Spanish) and work remotely from mid-sized cities or islands (like Mallorca). It feels like Central Europe is slowly losing steam while Spain is, unexpectedly, gaining some steam.

Central European salaries are getting high enough to not make remote work for abroad companies as atractive. $80k+ per year is becoming more and more common for Seniors in Poland.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#443

Post by badpun »

slaw wrote: post #370
jjav wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it doesn't collapse, then society may collapse? But there are plenty very cheap areas to buy houses or rent. Sure, many people don't want to live there, that's why it's cheap today. But it is a possibility nonetheless, one that is better than collapsing society. I'm always honestly confused why today it is seen as impossible to move to a cheap area? People have been doing this for generations (centuries?). It's…

Could you point me to these plenty cheap areas? I work remotely and may consider moving there.

You can buy flats in beautiful, historic city centre in Bytom, Poland for $500 per square meter. There are even well-paying coding jobs in the area (within 30 minutes by car or public transport).

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#444

Post by realityking »

csomar wrote: post #229
nemo44x wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it collapse? There’s insatiable demand for extreme limited property. Interest rate hikes may lower the price of property but the interest will rise proportionately. Do people really think at sone point no one will want premium property and I’ll finally get it cheap? Of course that will never happen.

If it doesn't collapse, then society may collapse? Like the sibling comment mentioned, you can only push this too far, and I think it's pushed too far to be very alarming. And housing is expensive by design and not by constraint. I'm staying in KL, a comparatively cheap place by Western standards. The housing market is crap here from a seller perspective as you have an over-supply of condos. That, despite the large a…

I‘m in the process of buying a ~22sqm micro apartment in Berlin. One of 265 units in one building. Admittedly not in the outskirts but pretty central.

Rents are pretty insane (~900-1200€/month, fully furnished, incl. internet and everything).

The only places that are cheap are either government subsidized, old contracts with rent protection, or old not modernized buildings.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#445

Post by GordonS »

neural_thing wrote: post #349
UncleOxidant wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Sweden story sounds so much like the SF story. It sounds like the same story being repeated all over the world. There was someone on comments here on another thread talking about how this is a problem in Ireland now as well. It's not just SF in the US, it's all over the place. A friend recently told me about his search for a place to rent in rural western Washington and they said it was just impossible to find…

Not in Singapore! Very different things happening here. Then again, 80% of the country lives in public housing.

Plus, availability of land is very limited; I think Singapore is quite a different story.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#446

Post by arthur_sav »

knallfrosch wrote: post #435
brodo wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What country did you move to?

Probably Spain. You're destroying their property market, but at least you're on the winning side this time.

I wouldn't consider Spain low tax. Perhaps lower than Sweden but it's not low. UAE

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#447

Post by badpun »

CalRobert wrote: post #425
ricardobayes wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like to browse the real estate market just for fun sometimes and actually yes there are cheap areas in every country. Some are cheap due to remoteness, due to inventory or mismanagement/decline. Like in mentioned in another comment, (south) Spain has incredibly cheap properties because there are many available and mortgages are available to even non-residents (not necessarily _in_ cities, but within a 30 min radius…

Something I learned too late is that sometimes a place is cheap because of horrible neighbours.

More generally, cheap areas often means economic underdevelopment or decline, which leads to social problems and annoying neighbors (on account of drinking, unemployment and other issues). On the plus side, there's less traffic, because people aren't as busy going to places to make and spend money as they are in economically vibrant areas.

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#448

Post by pharmakom »

gambiting wrote: post #414
slaw wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you point me to these plenty cheap areas? I work remotely and may consider moving there.

Around here in the North East of UK you can easily buy a house for around £100k. It won't be amazing or anything, but with banks offering 5% deposit mortgages pretty much anyone can save up for it and get on the property ladder. Of course the situation down south is completely different and the closer you get to London the more impossible it gets to ever buy your house.

The trouble is even that is a challenge outside of the London job market

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#449

Post by Brybry »

jjav wrote: post #340
csomar wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it doesn't collapse, then society may collapse? Like the sibling comment mentioned, you can only push this too far, and I think it's pushed too far to be very alarming. And housing is expensive by design and not by constraint. I'm staying in KL, a comparatively cheap place by Western standards. The housing market is crap here from a seller perspective as you have an over-supply of condos. That, despite the large a…

> If it doesn't collapse, then society may collapse? But there are plenty very cheap areas to buy houses or rent. Sure, many people don't want to live there, that's why it's cheap today. But it is a possibility nonetheless, one that is better than collapsing society. I'm always honestly confused why today it is seen as impossible to move to a cheap area? People have been doing this for generations (centuries?). It's…

Also the other obvious answer that people have been doing for centuries is multi-generational households.

It's not the end of the world to live with your parents (or your partner's).

I think we could see a lot of pressure towards that as Western total fertility rate continues to decrease and larger population groups (Millennials) age with fewer or no children to help out.

Even a shift towards non-relatives households wouldn't be the end of society, it would just be change (and require some zoning/code changes).

Re: What broke Sweden? Real estate bust exposes big divide

#450

Post by toyg »

theshrike79 wrote: post #339
erur wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely not every city in Germany that has this problem. You're trying to live in one of the objectively best parts of Germany by a lot of stats and thus you're competing with a lot of folks. I'm honestly sick of this whining about rent in top-tier areas. Living there is a luxury, given the major move to cities and scarcity, driven by insane regulations and basic logic. There are plenty of cities in Germany w…

> There are plenty of cities in Germany with very cheap rent, where apartment buildings get torn down because they're vacant. There are plenty of cities in Finland like this too. But the problem is that the jobs aren't there. I could buy a huge house with a big yard from one of those cities, but then my commute would be over 300km every day. Not really worth it. Or I would have to quit my job and start working in the…

I'm not attacking your experience, but in 2023, with the explosion of remote jobs in software and generally post-covid, this sort of argument looks a bit weak on HN.
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