Right. I was born in Europe and am still struggling with North American cultural assumption that "place to live" == "own property".

Back to the original post I think there are several statistics that apply to different geographical areas or demographics in the same post, leading us to conclusion that half the continent is out on the street, and demonstrating risk of back of the napkin calculations on policy decisions, even if we assume good will and honest effort :-/

To be clear, the parent poster is not using these terms as a native American would either.

He's arguing below that about 50% of the US population is homeless, which is not even close to accurate.

This isn't a "North American cultural assumption", I'm pretty sure most Americans would take that to mean rent too.

You have to understand unlike in Europe. We have no safety net. Most peoples whole savings is their home. So owning your home is a big part of having something to retire on and pay bills.

Actually, very common in some European countries as well.

In the Netherlands, you aren’t taxed on your primary residence, but all other wealth has an approximately 2% annual wealth tax. This makes it challenging to accumulate wealth through any means other than a primary residence, which was many of my coworkers’ primary way of saving.

Granted, they also have mandatory pensions, which can give you a good income in retirement, but that’s different than wealth accumulation

Oh I've lived in Canada for 25 years now and I see that around me... It just isn't something I've embraced though. There's a almost religious faith that houses can only go up, and I've lived through enough interesting times and places not to believe it for a moment (as has anybody over 60 on Canada as well).

> We have no safety net

Bullshit. American unemployment pays consdeirably more than UK unemployment. Throw on food stamps and housing assisitance on there, and the US might still be below the more generous European countries, but you definitely have a safety net.

> unlike in Europe... So owning your home is a big part of having something to retire on and pay bills

So what, like the UK? And Ireland? And argaubly all of Europe east of Germany and in Scandinaivia, all places where home ownership is comparable or greater than the US?

Unemployment is different in every state and is pretty short. I know in NJ its only for 26 weeks. Plus this isn't used for retirement. Have you ever tried getting food stamps or housing. Lets just say its not very easy. Also its setup so that as soon as you start getting a little ahead its taken away. So you end up right back where you started.

New Jersey unemployment is 60% of your weekly earnings to a max of $713.

UK unemployment (called Jobseeker's Allowance) is up to £90.50/week. $115.30 in dollars.

It is not the same, but these are proxy numbers, because rental costs will increase along with owning costs.

Median house price is 347k. I find it hard to believe a mortgage on that is 60k a year.

$374k at say 7% interest with average property taxes and insurance will be around $4.2k/month. not quite $60k/year but not too far off…

I think your number is a bit high. Looking at a few calculators, even if I push the property tax & insurance numbers quite a bit higher than I think is credible, I can't get the numbers past $3800/mo or so. More reasonable seems to be around $3400/mo. So that's $40k-$46k/yr, well below that overinflated $70k-$100k figure quoted upthread.

Also your math is off: even at your $4200/mo estimate, that's $50,400/yr, nowhere near your "not too far off" $60k. And that puts it at 30%-50% below the $70k-$100k range, which makes that range laughably inaccurate.

4.2k * 12 months = 50.4k -- so 20k under the bottom of the large range previously posted (70k-100k/yr)

Current 30 year rates about 6.5% which would mean about $2150 assuming about 10% down payment and 340k mortgage over 30 years.

That would mean you are paying $2k a month in tax and insurance?!