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Comment by epups | Hacker News Reader

Funny to hear this sentiment in a tech forum. If you do well in a programming career you can afford a house almost anywhere. I don't think you need to work more than 40h a week to achieve that either.

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I'm doing well in my programming career and a house in the majority of Canada is completely unattainable unless one partners up, or moves somewhere absolutely dreadful, which is the option I took and now regret.

Maybe this is true in America, but many of us don't live there despite a desire to do so.

Not in southern Europe, unless you want to pay the mortgage for the next 30 years or something.

Specially with Air BnB and pensioned foreigns driving the prices sky high.

A 30 year mortgage is pretty typical in the US. How does it work in southern Europe?

Yeah, now try that living from 1500 euros a month, typical salary in many IT shops.

I'd have to know what a mortgage costs.

About 500 euros monthly, depending on the agreement.

Spending 30% of your income on your mortgage is pretty close to what lots of people in the US do. The typical advice is that you shouldn't spend more than 28% of your gross on your mortgage.

Except that is much more than 30% for a large set of the population, hence why so many above 30 years old still live by their parents.

So a couple, each earning minimum wage, could afford a mortgage together? That’s not too bad.

Better never split up.

That’s minimum wage in most countries. Tech salaries are lower in Europe than the US but that has to be exaggeration. Either that or you’re looking in the wrong places.

Minimum wage is about 800 euros in Portugal, after taxes.

I think to still know enough about my home country.

I know Portuguese IT workers earning vastly more than that remotely, and I've been honestly quite impressed with Portuguese developers, so Portugal is a bit of an odd case. I suspect for the IT market the salaries paid in Portugal don't match up to the salaries actually being paid to many IT workers.

So the stories of having to live in a trailer in silicon valley because everything else is too expensive are all false?

Is that a fair conclusion from my comment? If so, I apologise.

Not everybody lives in US.

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