Can the average person afford to live on their own in your area?

unfortunately, I don't think so. I live in an expensive area and prices are very expensive.

Not really. Apartments here are crazy expensive considering the avg/minimum salary.

No, most people get a roommate here. I have a friend who rented a small townhouse with 4 other people just to be able to afford a place next to his uni.

I think we only have one apartment complex in the whole county I don't think most houses way out here would be too expensive compared to other cities/states but we do have a mix of under 100k all the way to multi millions

I would love to own one of the stables out here but $$$ The Depp's property went up for sale years ago and I thought that would be super cool to have

Depends on it

I totally wouldn't recomend cities over 200K people cause than you pay a shit load. Especially if you would go to Munich, Hamburg or Berlin you can barly pay for nothing. I saw a few videos in the past where designers try to find solutions against it and some even say the only way to get out of this issue is building tiny apartments. A few tiny appartments exist allover the country, but those are places the majority of people don't really wants to live in so some people don't know what to think about it. Another issue is that those who want to live in a tiny house to save money have problems since most towns and cities don't allow it. In an documentation on it the city of Munich for example says "to be able to grow as a city you have to think of the people who live in it. And this is a reason why we allow people to be able to build tiny." Most other cities say no since they have a lot prejudices on the topic or just since it didn't happend before they don't want to allow it as seen as in a case where in north Germany a lost camping ground was reused by people who wanted to go tiny and they even build acording to law, 10 years later they get forced to demolish these buildings. Most people living in their said they can't afford to live anywhere else and so they were happy to have this place. It's such a shame tho.

Depending on the exact location, your landlord, the size of the building etc. rent can go anything from 200 to 1000 for the same type of building. And one of the issues is something that we call "Luxussanierung" aka the landlord of your building does random renovations on the building, example he would give each apartment new bathrooms. To do so he either kicks all people out of the building and later on puts each apartment for a higher price and only people who can pay it move in or he forces the people living in the building to pay more each month cause of the better bathroom. Many people can't pay those high rents and leave at the end when stuff like that happens to an apartment building. You also may pay a lot, like more than 1000 bucks when for example the building is very old like over 100 years and the walls and doors and mostly ceiling are recreated to look originaly like back in the old days. People who really want such appartments are mostly those who end up saving a lot on othet things or they just can pay for that hight rent somehow.

Cheaper apartment buildings also often tend to have warn down looking hallways, no elevator, maybe the walls on the outside look bad too and there is maybe even a lack in parkingspots. If the building looks quit decent and has an elevator than its mostly one that is very old like from the day the building was build.

Especially the east of the country has a lot of those high buildings who all look the same and are very cheap. The style is called "Plattenbau" (Platte = Tile) since it has the look as if you just took a bunch of big cement tiles and build the thing whin some days. Many of them are allready empty since nobody wants to live there no more and a lot allready got demolished or are totally abonded. It is nothing rare now to find some buildings where you have for example 10 apartments on each floor, 20 floors tall and only 5 apartments have still people living in it. You mostly find in that type of building people who barly even make enough money to live.

The minimum wage here is curently 9,50€ but after taxes many people are left with barly over 1000 bucks depending on what type of taxes class you are grouped in and imagine you pay 700€ on rent, gas, electricity, ... and than have other costs too. You won't survive like this so it is good if you are able to find a very cheap apartment that is like 400€ or cheaper, but than you often only find small places. I was somehow lucky to find y decent sized place (47m²) and only pay 350€ (rent + water + garbage disposal + a gardner for the backyard)

I am not too sure how hard it is for a lot people, but sometimes you may hear here that they try to for example rething how to use abonded or old and outdated looking buildings for poor people or how to get use of not used apartments and how to make more space for those who can't pay for it.

There are also ways to get your aparment payed if you can't afford it (but you have to follow rules like size and price or else they may ask you to move). Nobody has a need to be homeless here, but those who you see on the streets are mostly people who give a fuck that they can access help so yeah ...

Buying a house is also another thing. You may find something for 100K or so but many places got redicioulusly expensive so a house someone build for 90K on the 70s and was sold for 150K in the 90s will be resold for 400K now. There are some companies who try to work against it by offering a type of house that can be build for only 100K but most people I guess don't have that luck with building a house and so it's expensive. Going tiny would work also if you have not much money but the problem as said before is that many cities and towns don't allow it.

It's weird

No they cannot. Rental prices in my town are insane. You can't get a decent house for under $320 a week and don't even mention buying a house. I've seen them going for a million here. Unless a person is earning a really good wage and is single with no kids, there's no way they would be able to afford it plus when you factor in food, power bills etc which has increased due to COVID. I honestly don't know how they do it and paying off a car as well.

Quote from MissBehave

Like in a rented decent one-bedroom apartment? Could they afford to purchase a home (house or condo) on their own if they had an average job?

part 1 - yes

part 2 - no

Quote from MissBehave

What about after college? Say they have a four-year degree and a decent office job?

i'd say most people my age have a roommate (or live with their sibling or someone they're in a relationship with). i still have friends that had to move back in with their parents well after college.

No. The avg salary probably seems high to people in other locations at $90k, but the avg rent for a studio is $2,500. A 1 bd room apartment is $2,900. A 2 bdroom is like $3,300 IIRC.

The median home sold price is $1.4M, with many homes going over the asking price (the median asking price is $1.2M).

This isn’t counting our higher utilities, gas and other overall cost of living costs.

Yes. Cost of living is below national average here. It's a very easy city to live in IMO.

This Area has a High Cost of Living. Rent and Housing prices are very high. Communities lean toward higher priced businesses. It an odd mix of Boutiques and Costco.

Many manage to make a living here on modest incomes. Budget to keep Debt manageable and improve assets over time.

i feel like with global inflation, it's pretty hard, unless a couple gets married, the gov gives subsidies for new couples to buy a public housing(which most of the people here live in, very decent)

In my hometown kinda yeah if they just rent an apartment but if they wanna buy it not possible or only possible with support of parents or someone else, otherwise they won't even give you a loan

the city where I live in, you can't even rent an apartment on your own lol ...life

Not really, they would most likely live on the edge, that's why many live with their parents unless they are from another town. Buying an apartment (there are no chances for a house) is almost impossible on your own unless you take a bank loan for 30 years.

I keep hunting for an apartment for the last 2 years and lmao it gets harder and harder