[majidazimi]

Even if it's half cheaper, a family house of 80-100m^2 costs beyond 600K which is way beyond affordability range of a couple both working as software engineers let alone people with non-tech jobs.

[speleding]

With mortgages in the 1.5-2% range, a 600K house would cost you €750 - €1000 a month in mortgage payments, and that's not even taking into account tax benefits you may get. That's an absolute steal compared to what you would pay in rent in a place like Amsterdam or London.

[holoduke]

little late, but not true. 600k equals to about 2000 a month in mortgage payment

[mrep]

Why is that? Like, on the US west coast, ballooning home prices makes sense because their cities are in valleys with a fixed amount of land, but munich looks like it has a bunch of farmland around it that could be converted into housing increasing supply and thus decreasing prices. This coming from someone in chicagoland which has 9.5 million people but housing isn't crazy because the metro area sprawls 30-40 miles out into what used to farmland.

[ChuckNorris89]

Because Germany is mostly old money, inherited for generations, that is very risk adverse so instead of investing it in new SW companies or buying stocks, they park it in real estate in desirable areas and prop up this bubble since it's a sure bet for a return on investment. That's why they call it Beton Gold ("concrete gold").

[ksec]

I think it has more to do with world wide's low interest rate which is pushing asset prices to sky rocket.

You now get a fast shrinking middle class and dismal living condition in lower class.

Of course, they could have combated this with more supply. Not sure if they have done so.

[thehashrocket]

If we keep plowing over farmland to build suburbs where will the farming get done?

[ChuckNorris89]

600K for a house in Munich sounds really cheap considering that that's how much a small apartment costs in the city center there.