Looking at the site where you got this chart, it looks like they are using price to income to determine their price index. If income is low, then the Price to Income Ratio will be higher. Thus poor countries will have the highest ratios.

[quote=carlsbadworker]
Right. But US income range is similar to European country, Australia or our neighbor Canada. But its price to income ratio is almost half of those countries.[/quote]

Income is higher in USA I would think. (though not double.) But ease of getting home loans and lower interest rates could be a big factor.

Labor is often cheaper around the world, but construction materials are expensive. In addition in many of the countries I’ve been to outside the developed Anglo world, all wealth and power is basically concentrated in the capital. This means competition for real estate in the capital is often quite fierce.

Plus this chart is dumb. It’s averaging price to income in the de-populating mid west with high cost coastal CA. That’s like conflating the cost in Miraflores (Lima) with rural Peru. In this case all real estate is truly local-ish.
Josh

You generally won’t ever see in California a cow so close to an apartment tower you could hear it moo and toss it half your pain au chocolat, which I did.

Oregon does this. The fights over moving the urban/rural development lines are worse than a knife fight. A good friend of mine’s wife is / was a civil planner in Eugene.

As to costs of housing that would explain Europe where they have zoning laws. What about South America which is much more, “flexible?” I say the unifying costs are that energy and materials are generally much more expensive in both nominal and real terms. I think that’s the underlying reason why on avg housing is cheaper in ‘murica.
Josh

[quote=barnaby33]

You generally won’t ever see in California a cow so close to an apartment tower you could hear it moo and toss it half your pain au chocolat, which I did.

Oregon does this. The fights over moving the urban/rural development lines are worse than a knife fight. A good friend of mine’s wife is / was a civil planner in Eugene.

As to costs of housing that would explain Europe where they have zoning laws. What about South America which is much more, “flexible?” I say the unifying costs are that energy and materials are generally much more expensive in both nominal and real terms. I think that’s the underlying reason why on avg housing is cheaper in ‘murica.
Josh[/quote]

Welcome to San Marcos where you can find new urban construction next to cows

I was there once around 2011. A young employee of mine lived with his parents there and we picked him up there on the way to a trip north to LA. I was impressed at the sheer size of the place, like 5500sf on a nice big lot and still pretty cheap.

It was also pretty far. His father commuted to point loma by driving to the coaster and taking the train down to old town. Can’t remember how he did the last leg, but old town train station is very close to the edge of point loma.

That sounds like a story my father in law used to tell me. Scratching my head? Is there any point?