you can get a mortgage credit with a really low interest rate. If you have a family, your rent probably will be higher than your mortgage payment. (5% rule) so without earning a high salary, you can still buy a house.
Read `take a 30y mortgage` with plenty of downside risk is quite a low bar for one of the best paying industries in the world.
The disconnect between salaries and the housing market in western EU is pretty much at an all-time high. If these are the expectations for tech salaries then how about the rest of the (middle-class) workforce?
However, I think there is a lot of price variation in Berlin, and many cheap parts: I’m paying €485 for a room in a WG in Buchholz, while collecting €820 (after fees, at current exchange rates) from a flat in a quiet village 30 minutes away from Cambridge in the UK.
The expectation seems to be we will go back to a sharp division between property owners and eternal tenants, like it was when my 95 year old grandparents were kids.
The Old World still likes its Feudalism it seems.
Working as a developer in the USA is way better than being a developer in Europe.