[ajuc]

> In the north masonry homes have a lot of problems with freeze thaw cycles

That's weird, central Europe has pretty northern climate with cold snowy winters and hot summers and I've never heard about any such problems. I've lived my whole life in such houses. You just need proper insulation (but you need it anyway cause heating is expansive). I think Americans don't much care for good windows for example, at least in the movies they have these weird 1-layer sliding windows that nobody would use here :).

> As far as upgrades , remodeling, overall costs goes stick built homes are superior.

There's a bit of stigma against wooden houses here and they are considered worse investment because they degrade and lose value much faster.

[rmah]

Single pane windows are not common in the US in anything built in the last 30 years or so (give or take a few decades). Sliding windows are usually 2 or even 3 pane. Movies use single pane candy "glass" windows so characters can be thrown through them.