Home sweet home is a rented property for many Germans

[CHIMO]

It takes a while for a British visitor window-shopping in any German town to realise that something is missing. But then it clicks: someone has removed all the estate agents.

The lack of a physical presence on the high street is symbolic of two polarised national psyches. Britain is fixated by the property market; Germany is not. The Brits want to clamber on the housing ladder at the first opportunity; Germans are happy to rent. Britain has had four boom-and-busts in the housing market in the past four decades; German house prices are actually lower in real terms than they were in 1970.

According to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, house prices increased by an average of 83% between 1970 and 2008 in OECD countries. In Germany, they fell 17%, mainly due to a pronounced drop over the past decade when countries such as the United States, Britain and Ireland saw huge house-price bubbles. Prices in the UK surged by 282% between 1970 and 2009, the latest OECD figures show.

For Germans, the financial crisis that followed the property boom has reinforced their suspicion of rising house prices. The idea that families would sit around the dinner table discussing how much their home had risen in value over the past year is alien.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/16/new-europe-germany-property

[Wilms]

1. Bankers, RE agents, and "get rich quick" types have turned communities into casinos.

There's much written about the bankers and flippers, but little noise about RE agents who LOVE to hype the market and LOVE turnover. Hype and turnover is their get rich doing little schema.

[Sonoman]

2. Switzerland, as well.

Go to Switzerland and try to find someone of Swiss descent.

They are all elsewhere, leasing their homes to other people.

Sonoman

[CTyankee]

3. Do elaborate on your point, please...we'd all love to hear it...

[Sonoman]

4. It's pretty simple.

Rents in the country are sky-high and properties rarely sell, they are simply passed from one generation to the next.

Why sell when you have clear ownership and can live anywhere on the rent you get?

At least, this is what my Swiss neighbors have told me. They all live in multi-million dollar homes (vineyards, etc.) and have never worked.

Neither did their parents.

They just live off the rent.

I want that gig.

So when I was in Switzerland, I made a point to chat up folks I perceived as 'local' and that's pretty much what I found out. I did find people of Swiss descent who ran local businesses. They mostly live off the renters (and tourists), too.

Please correct me if you have evidence to the contrary. Mine is mostly hearsay, but it sure seemed to pan out with first-person experience.

Sonoman

[kickysnana]

6. Doing genealogy in Switzerland is difficult...

if you leave why should we care if you know your genealogy?

If the world ever become sane and safer maybe I will go and find out myself.

[BeyondGeography]

5. Interesting read

Rec'd.

[upi402]

7. $98-112K USD for a Berlin 2 Bedroom

Forex; 1.39 EUR-USD
criagslist has scant few properties in Frankfurt etc. Mostly US and Costa Rica, with Greece, Italy, and others too.