@this thread in general...
You people have ridiculous living costs, it seems. Apartments here cost, depending on the neighborhood, between €80k and €200k for a 74 square meter place (typically 2 bedrooms, living room, kitchen and bathroom). Typical monthly rent is around €600 to €700 for a 60 sqm flat (suburbs, at least in the house I live in). In the Helsinki centre, it's different, that place is expensive, my parents are asking for something like €550 a month for a 23 sqm singleroom flat they own there, and the one we sold to get money for my current apartment went for €75k, it was 24 sqm. My current place is 61 sqm, excellent condition, and cost only €88k, though it was a bargain, at roughly €12k to €17k less than the market price, so I was extremely lucky. It's even better because it's only 10 km from the city center, located right next to an underground station and the ride to center is just 15 minutes, with trains every ten minutes. With the place as my own, living costs for apartment are €170 per month (including gas for the stove and water for two), plus €12 or so per month for electricity. Other bills come on top of that.
Of course, trying to get the finances for an apartment of your own is difficult enough if you have to pay a rent that consumes something like one quarter to half your salary (
before taxes), and with prices going up constantly due to increased demand. It's ridiculous, for the price of a single two-room flat in Helsinki center, you could buy
a whole apartment-block in some parts of Finland.
I owe my parents more than I can ever repay, because if they had not bought the three single-room places in Helsinki center 15 to 13 years back (when the prices were less than half of current level), there'd be no way in hell I'd have a place of my own now. The remaining two will sometime in the future fund my sister's and brother's apartments somewhere.
But $1100 or $1300 a month for a basic apartment that's somewhere out in the middle of nowhere (relatively speaking, I mean far away from the local hub)? Sheesh!
BTW, Ravencrow, hi!
Long time since you last posted, or then I just missed it.
Edi