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Somewhat off-topic anecdote on this: my father in law designed a very rough draft of "blueprints" for his parents new house in rural China (Xinjiang) using MS Paint, local labourers built it in a few months and it's still standing 10 years later!

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From a European perspective, I like how you say that the house is still standing 10 years later (and someone in another comment above mentioned 25 years) like it's something outstanding.

I would expect a house to last 100 years. A family member once bought a house that is over 400 years old (and still standing).

Then again, construction and houses are way more expensive in Europe/Germany. They're planning to tear down and rebuild my old high school from scratch, current estimate: 85 million euros total.

It would be interesting to see a more rigorous comparison that took into account size and what not, but here's the first Google result for "new high school building", a $65 million project:

http://www.monomoy.edu/page.cfm?p=931

(A regional high school school for about 700 students, 168,000 square feet)

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