51–60 of 87 posts
Yeah Switzerland is great as long as you don't have children. Once you get a child, well, you're out of luck. Childcare in Switzerland is the craziest expense I've seen in my life, where having your kid looked after for 5 days a week will cost you 2-2,5k CHF / USD per month! And if you have a second child, they might give you 10% discount. So around 4,5k USD per month for 2 kids. It's madness! Besides that, you will…
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I have to argue that there are both tax rates and job opportunities available in Switzerland that you'd be hard pressed to find elsewhere in Europe. If someone it taking home ~300K CHF / year in some sort of support role in a bank in Zurich the above overheads don't seem to be such a deal breaker.
If by support you mean IT support, then it will probably a third of that.
> A financially rational person would consider buying a house if the P/R ratio is 15 or lower. How does one go about calculating that? Or reading someone else's calculations? For real estate prices I can check out the Case-Shiller, for P/R I got nothing.
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Good question. I think usually you are taxed where you live. Unless you are a US citizen, then you are taxed also by the US if you earn more than $100k. (As an American, if you open a bank account in Switzerland you have to declare a special form, stating that you will correctly declare taxes to the US etc. I think you even have to fill this form if you hold a green-card or ever worked/paid taxes in your life in the…
One of the very first things they ask you when you open a bank account in Switzerland is whether you are from the US. When I was asked this, and I asked them why this was important (I'm not from the US btw.), the person on the other side of the table told me that if I was, she'd have to get her manager.
People coming here with suitcases full of money was one thing but a totally other level was that some Swiss bankers really flew over to the US with encrypted laptops "to get new customers".
A couple flaws in the article. If you don't buy a house but buy stocks, you will pay rent. According to the numbers in the article, this nearly cuts the stock return in half. Also, the article states you will lose money on the depreciation of the building, but does not take into account the appreciation of the land. The land appreciation is highly leveraged, as well, since most people typically place only 20% down on…
OP here. I think I wrote: > "the land doubled in value and is worth 200k CHF" Even if you add up not having to pay rent and possible sale of the house (on which y) you would still end up much better with stocks: House: You buy the house, after 30 years let's say the value stays the same: You own 500.000 CHF worth of house. (Assuming you had no repairs and the value stayed the same, which is VERY optimistic). You sell…
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OP here. I think I wrote: > "the land doubled in value and is worth 200k CHF" Even if you add up not having to pay rent and possible sale of the house (on which y) you would still end up much better with stocks: House: You buy the house, after 30 years let's say the value stays the same: You own 500.000 CHF worth of house. (Assuming you had no repairs and the value stayed the same, which is VERY optimistic). You sell…
The article is also assuming exchange rates stay the same over that period. Unlikely.
For my follow Americans thinking about commenting on this, keep in mind that mortgages vary quite a lot from country to country. The mortgage system we have in the United States--characterized by: domination by the government (in the form of GSEs), long (30 year) fixed rate mortgages with no prepayment penalties, high leverage ratios (up to 19:1 or higher), and low spreads--is not the system used elsewhere. Other cou…
FWIW the OP's cost of living figures in the video included in the linked article seem a little low or are assuming best case. Sure you can get health insurance cover at 250.- CHF a month but that will be at the highest franchise (i forget the English word) so if you do get sick it's going to cost you 2,500 CHF before the insurance kicks in.
1,200.- CHF a month seems low for Zürich, but also high for a single room with no kitchen. I'm paying a little more than that for 3.5 rooms with a kitchen, garage, cave, etc. No, I'm not in Zürich or Genève.
400.- CHF a month on food seems about right if you never eat out at all ever. And sure you can spend as little as 100.- CHF a month on travel, but you're in Switzerland - get out and see a bit of it, go snowboarding/skiing in the winter season.
For anyone reading this in the US: don't take this at face value. This (my opinion) is coming from someone who's indifferent between renting vs. owning, so is trying to make the decision purely on financial factors. Reasons why this article does't apply in the US: (1) The "eigenmietwert" the author writes about is known as an "imputed income tax". The idea is, most assets generate income: bonds pay interest, stocks p…
Which other "Anglosphere" countries promote home ownership the same way that the US does with e.g. mortgage interest deductions? There are many pairs of otherwise culturally similar countries with differing policies on this (e.g. US & Canada, Belgium & the Netherlands).
At the end, I pay fewer taxes (I'm not expecting ever to finish paying my property in Switzerland), I pay less rent and I invest more in stocks.
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If by support you mean IT support, then it will probably a third of that.
Though IT support would count, I was thinking more along the lines of supporting traders, such as quants and the people that specialise in their toolkits that support them.
For more information, shoot me an e-mail. You find my contact details in my HN profile. (Disclaimer: I am a former programm and I recruit software engineers into Zurich, New York and Munich for a living now.)