Hacker News Reader

Hacker News

Comment by NiekvdMaas | Hacker News Reader

Full thread

NiekvdMaas

Compared to some other countries:

The Netherlands: €31.5k average household income, average house price €387k - so 12.3x.

UK: £31.4k average household income, average house price £274k - so 8.7x.

View on HN

That's not correct. I suspect that the source you saw said:

> As of 2017, the average annual real disposable income of Dutch households was roughly 31,500 euros.

Disposable household income would be, at a minimum, after tax, and possibly after accommodation. You'd want to increase that by about 60% to account for tax/etc, which would be 50.4K. That seems more reasonable to me, and would put the multiplier at 7.7.

Not sure about the UK - that could very well be accurate, but London throws averages completely out of whack.

I don't think London throws them out of whack all that much. I'm around Milton Keynes/Bedford so SE but a bit further than most folk would want to commute to London (and I'd imagine a reasonable percentage of the population live within a similar radius of London) and that average house price feels about right. You'd might manage to get a three-bed terrace or two-bed semi for that sort of amount I'd say.

I dunno - I always assumed that London-proper prices (i.e., not Milton Keynes) being so outrageously high, upwards of £1,000,000, would throw out the average. Though perhaps the number of slightly cheaper apartments brings it back down again (although of course statistics can't tell you that's because the apartments are the size of a shoebox).

Plus as I understand it, a bit further north you could probably start getting a decent house for £300,000 or less. And in really out of the way places, under £150,000. Trying to talk about "average" house prices in most countries is generally a bit daft IMO because the range between "remote little country town" and "centre of the largest city" is vast.

https://espc.com/properties?locations=edinburgh&minbeds=2plu...

TIL the capital of my country is really out of the way :D

Do agree that it's hard to talk about averages - you almost need e.g. a heat map of the price for a certain size of 3-bed semi or 2-bed flat or such like. It's tricky too because house prices in areas of the country where there are few jobs are irrelevant for anybody needing a job who can't get one in that area. Although I imagine remote working has flattened things somewhat.

I see your housing bubble and raise you 18x in Prague, 16x in Brno: https://www.numbeo.com/property-investment/country_result.js...

Feels really unsustainable, I don't know how it can continue and I really feel for anyone here who's not earning tech-sector wages

What is most depressing to me, where do people get the money???

It would take me 30 years of saving to get 500k, that's like 70-80% of my working life. That's assuming you don't get sick or lose your job.

This metric annoy me because only a fraction of your income can go toward rent or mortgage . You would pay over 100k in interest fees alone on a long term mortgage.

Real incomes cant keep up with compounding, especially when the latter is basically tax free. It's driven by capital gains, not salaries.

What's most depressing to me is that the only time a party promised to slow down this madness they were destroyed in an election.

People voted for this. The majority voted for this.

Yes, why would I vote against my own interests? I am after all a temporarily embarrassed millionaire, rather than a poor person. I’ll get there one day, surely.

A friend of mine is selling his 1 bed terrace (about £200K) and the prospective buyers are older than they would have been twenty years ago - in their 30s not their 20s is the impression I get. I imagine there are large mortgages too. Possibly some help from parents or inheritances as well. And couples so two salaries.

> What is most depressing to me, where do people get the money?? It would take me 30 years of saving to get 500k, that's like 70-80% of my working life.

Mortgages. This is why they exist.

> You would pay over 100k in interest fees alone on a long term mortgage.

You pay 100k of today's money in interest and fees over the course of 30 years. 100k in 1992 was worth far far more than 100k is worth today.

Yes, because a bank will happily give someone on a 60k salary a 1 million dollar mortgage.

They won't, but they'll give two people on 100k salaries a 1 million dollar morthage

The average house price in south east in UK is about 500K and the average salary in the same region is about 30K. This is more like ~17x.

Yea here in the SE prices have gone crazy the last couple of years, we're pretty much priced out of our local village now - if we hadn't bought 4 years ago, no way we would be able to now.

similar in the southwest - Cornwall prices are crazy at the moment thanks to the mass migration from the southeast during the pandemic

Bath and the surrounding area have been like that for years too.

Czechia - 220K CZK per person with average household 2.1 people makes 462K CZK / 18823 EUR with average real estate price 3.751M CZK /153K EUR (65m2, data from end 2021) so roughly 8 yearly average household incomes to get average 65 m2 apartment with prices varying a lot across regions (in Prague would such apartment cost almost exactly double price)

https://www.kurzy.cz/zpravy/630209-prijmy-a-zivotni-podminky... https://www.seznamzpravy.cz/clanek/za-rok-a-pul-pres-milion-...

It spreads too, in the little towns around Brno prices are raised as relatively wealthy people (who aren't quite able to find something suitable in their budget range in the city itself) seek to buy something near the city and commute or work remotely. I don't imagine the salaries of the people who were previously living in these towns and villages have risen the same way salaries in the city have.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com