I was thinking that. Its way above the minimum wage in the UK and we bought a house a few years ago on that just fine.
Not even that low cost of an area really, just cheaper than around London. Move away from the big cities and its much more affordable. Why would you want to live in a big city anyway with the higher air pollution? Not getting a car also helped save a lot of money, cycle everywhere instead.
“I need to live in London because of the jobs!” - You stack shelves in Tesco, that isn’t a job worth living in London for.
I just looked up housing sites in the US, apparently Zillow is popular. Texas is a big state and stuck my house price in as an upper limit.
First result is fucking huge. It has more bathrooms than I have bedrooms. And its in a place I have heard of despite living on another continent. Most people 50+ miles away will have never even heard of the town I live in.
This is what you consider to be a bad housing market?
the us is relatively spread out, all those cheaper areas no one wants to live there
and distance can be deceptive, growing up 20miles to work could take 1.25 hrs+ each way, check the google estimated travel time during rush hour to the city center / likely work locations
Most people in USA suburbs leave from and return to their house in a car 99% of the time, so effectively the garage door is the front door of the house, and the actual front door is vestigial and kept for ritualist purposes.
SpaghettiMaster@feddit.uk 8 hours ago
I was thinking that. Its way above the minimum wage in the UK and we bought a house a few years ago on that just fine.
Not even that low cost of an area really, just cheaper than around London. Move away from the big cities and its much more affordable. Why would you want to live in a big city anyway with the higher air pollution? Not getting a car also helped save a lot of money, cycle everywhere instead.
“I need to live in London because of the jobs!” - You stack shelves in Tesco, that isn’t a job worth living in London for.
nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 1 hour ago
Not getting a car and not living in a city is impossible in the US. Also healthcare eats the 1/3 of my income.
We have higher wages, but correspondingly higher expenses offset it.
baines@lemmy.cafe 3 hours ago
private equity buting homes has fucked the us housing markets even in surrounding suburbs in many states
housing prices nearly doubled from 2010 in many places
SpaghettiMaster@feddit.uk 2 hours ago
I just looked up housing sites in the US, apparently Zillow is popular. Texas is a big state and stuck my house price in as an upper limit.
First result is fucking huge. It has more bathrooms than I have bedrooms. And its in a place I have heard of despite living on another continent. Most people 50+ miles away will have never even heard of the town I live in.
This is what you consider to be a bad housing market?
baines@lemmy.cafe 1 hour ago
the us is relatively spread out, all those cheaper areas no one wants to live there
and distance can be deceptive, growing up 20miles to work could take 1.25 hrs+ each way, check the google estimated travel time during rush hour to the city center / likely work locations
that much time in traffic eats your life
kestrel7_7@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Most people in USA suburbs leave from and return to their house in a car 99% of the time, so effectively the garage door is the front door of the house, and the actual front door is vestigial and kept for ritualist purposes.
vagrancyand@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
Assuming you’re in the UK:
Your minimum wage is nearly triple ours.
Your median wage is 1.3x Texas’.
You pay less tax than in Texas.
You pay less for healthcare than anywhere in the US.
Your property taxes (council taxes) are lower than Texas.
You have lower interest rates for mortgages than the US.
You have cheaper, more fuel efficient vehicles than the US.
Your car insurance is less than a quarter US car insurance rates.
Your food is literally half the cost of US food.
So yes, your incredibly cheap life with your incredibly high wages makes your housing market much better than ours.