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Yes that's a problem, still Americans have higher average pay than most countries. With lots of room and cheap materials, it should be relatively easy to afford a house. And AFAIK it used to be that way. People could afford a house, car, children and health insurance on one income.

Not the person you're asking this from but as a Finn who watches a lot of construction related videos on YouTube I too get the feeling that houses in the US are built to a lower standard than here. It's not so much that the materials are worse quality but more that the building code is much stricter here.

I'm a plumber by trade so my area of expertise is quite narrow but couple things that come to mind is how copper pipes are often soldered in the US where as here they're always brazed which is a much stronger joint. We also don't allow any connections to be made inside walls but in the US they're common. Toilets there also tend to clog up quite often because of the way they operate which almost never happens here. Another thing I've noticed is that in the US they use a lot of wood and plywood even on bigger structures which poses a fire hazard as well as there doesn't seem to be as much thought put into the insulation and vapor barriers.

Basically that many houses in USA are made of wood, we can't do that here, because the climate is too wet. So wood doesn't last very long. That means we need to make brick houses. Brick houses are way more expensive to build than wood.
Also many places in USA don't require the same level of isolation.
In large parts of Sweden they can make wood houses too, and their house prices are way lower than here.
I'm not saying American houses are bad, but the climate in large parts of USA allows for more and cheaper options.

not op but i find it weird how you guys build houses mostly out of wood instead of brick and mortar. why is that?

Have you tried pulling yourself up by the bootstraps, surviving on the interest of your invested wealth, and forgoing toast with healthy yet expensive toppings? /s

Have you tried asking your rich dad to buy it for you?

Just buy some money.

You’d be surprised, it depends entirely on where you’re willing to live.

I used to live in the Denver Metro Area in Colorado and houses were going for like $400k-650k in the area.

Ended up moving to a smaller town ex-urban/rural area since my work is remote anyway. Had my home built in 2021. 1050 sq/ft 2 bed 2 bath for $210k. And even better, I snuck in before rates climbed. With $6k in points at closing, I got it at 2.25%.

Even after doing a full solar and battery installation and insuring the place for an additional $50k to accommodate that and value increase, my mortgage (including insurance and tax escrow) only comes to $1215 a month. I’ve been paying extra on principle every month to reduce interest amortization, and hope to pay it off within the next decade most likely. Retirement won’t be easy, but actually seems like a possibility now.

And bonus, I’m near a ton of nature, get to enjoy deer chilling outside the house, and the night sky out here is beautiful.