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this misses an important point i think.
in germany people live for a very long time in the same rented apartment. 20-30 years is common, as i understand it. homeownership is not seen as a "goal". i think adding an axis for tenancy length would be useful.
In Spain at least, a lot of ppl live in what looks like highrise apartment buildings, but many are actually condos owned out right. I'm surprised that's not more of the case in France and Germany, just letting landlords gobble up real estate like the US.
What is the difference between a condo and a highrise ?
A highrise just means any tall building, with enough floors to make an elevator required.
Housing highrise buildings can either have apartments for rent, or condos sold outright (usually with some kind of a homeowners association that takes care of utilities, trash, etc that you have to pay recurring fees to).
In my country (the US), highrise condos exist but are much rarer than every other form of housing. In Spain I saw a lot of highrise condo buildings, some of the condos even had two floors. Imagine a mansion inside of a highrise building, pretty neat.
Spain is a lot like the big cities of India than. I have recently seen ads for duplex highrise apartments here as well, but prohibitively expensive for me.
Literally nobody I know is happy renting. They've all just accepted they can't afford buying.
In Germany a lot of people can afford a mortgage, but they choose not to buy. It's in part culture and fear of commitment, in part a need for high mobility within the country.
It is a goal as far as I can tell from my social environment. It's just financially unachievable for most of them and me. Heck, my brother-in-law works at VW in a rather high up position and still says it's not realistic to them. At least not without moving to a different state.
Might also have something to do with tenants having so many rights that they just don't have many of the disadvantages they'd have in other countries.
Here in sweden at least, even a second hand renting contract is not that much worse than owning your home. And if you have a first hand contract with a municipal landlord i would argue it's the best form of housing you can have, in large part because you just don't have to do anything other than pay the oftentimes quite low rent. No need to perform maintenance and stuff.