[Epholys]

As you've probably guessed, I don't live in the US, so the price are drastically different. I live in the EU. And for my case, I love in really small flat for some years, so the rent couldn't go up a lot.

> most people in the US and EU, $200 would be closer to 15%-20% of rent I think?

> the average rent is north of $1000/mo.

I really don't know where you get your number from, $1000/mo average is really wild to me. With this amount, you can rent a flat for a whole family in the heart of the city. Nobody of my more well-of friends have a rent this high.

Or maybe you have some capital city in mind like Paris or London?

[robotresearcher]

A friend’s 2BR in Palo Alto is $6K/mo. It’s a cute little mid-century house with a small backyard, but no AC or garage.

The salaries are good in SCV, but the local economy is calibrated to absorb the money in proportion.

[dahart]

> I really don’t know where you get your number from

I googled it. According to Google, London’s average rent is around €2,700, around 3x higher than the average. I assume the number of people living there and paying that much balances against the number of people like you living in smaller towns and rural areas who are paying lower rents.

But yes, rents have become very high everywhere. I live in a medium sized city in the US not anywhere near a coast, and most kids attending the local university are paying over $1000/mo for a 1-bedroom place. The primary way to get cheaper rent is to have flat-mates, try to get 3 or 4 people into a place that rents for, say, $2500/mo.

I was paying $2k/mo in San Francisco 25 years ago for a place that was maybe 90m^2, and since then rents have gone way up. Google says the average now is just under $4k/mo. In some nicer neighborhoods, some people pay $8k/mo for a single bedroom. This big-city rent in SF, LA, NY, Chicago, Miami, etc. balances against the small towns in the US where you can find a room for $500/mo, which is why the average is above $1k.