I don't know why people immediately assume that when I say "buy a house" I mean "buy a house in the middle of London/Berlin/Paris". Can your average SF programmer afford to buy a house in the middle of SF?
I know people working for instance in Stuttgart - buying a house in the smaller towns nearby is not an issue at all according to them. I personally live in the UK and sure, London prices are insane - but we don't live in London. Me and my wife bought a house after saving just for a few months[0], the prices are very achievable for an average programmer.
[0]mortgaged, obviously. But since the prices are lower it was "easy" to save for a deposit and get a mortgage. We're literally paying £600/month on a mortgage for a 3-bed house with a large garden and double driveway. That's an almost insignificant part of my salary.
No disrespect, but houses in Germany are a lot more expensive than in the UK. If you own a 3 bedroom house and two driveways in Germany you're basically a millionaire.
And by "nice house" I didn't mean a house in the center of a major city but a house in the suburbs in a quiet, green area with good schools.
Right, that's fair enough - I'm just saying what I know from my family and friends who live around Stuttgart, in both CS industries and out of them. They own houses without being millionaires, maybe it's something about Stuttgart specifically.
But that would be silly, as the FAANG pool is far from the average. Average SF programmer salaries are still in the low 100s from the last numbers I saw (a few years out of date). Even with two of those in a household, you aren't buying in SF.
I know people working for instance in Stuttgart - buying a house in the smaller towns nearby is not an issue at all according to them. I personally live in the UK and sure, London prices are insane - but we don't live in London. Me and my wife bought a house after saving just for a few months[0], the prices are very achievable for an average programmer.
[0]mortgaged, obviously. But since the prices are lower it was "easy" to save for a deposit and get a mortgage. We're literally paying £600/month on a mortgage for a 3-bed house with a large garden and double driveway. That's an almost insignificant part of my salary.