[ido]

In Berlin, Germany it's (at least at first) a lot cheaper to rent. The place we're renting for 500 euro/m would be about 200k euro if we wanted to buy it, which would mean something like 600-650 euro/m for 30 years (with maybe 40-50k euro down-payment).

[pkolaczk]

Well, but after 30 years, when you retire the place is yours own and your monthly payment goes down. Even if you saved that 100-150 euro every month, you'd not afford buying it after 30 years, assuming it stayed at the same price-point.

On the other hand, it is hard to believe you can rent a 200k€ place for 500€/m. In Warsaw, a 2-room 40-50 m² apartment in the city center costs about 400-500€/m to rent, but if you wanted to buy it, offer prices start below 100k€.

[ido]

    On the other hand, it is hard to believe you can rent a
    200k€ place for 500€/m. In Warsaw, a 2-room 40-50 m² 
    apartment in the city center costs about 400-500€/m to
    rent, but if you wanted to buy it, offer prices start
    below 100k€.

Believe it! Or look at http://www.immobilienscout24.de/ for Berlin (in the combo box right of the search field "kaufen" means buy and "mieten" means rent - pick the first option in both).

There are places that are unusual (like Mitte - the center of the city), but for ~90%+ of Berlin the pattern I described above more or less holds.

[ido]

    Even if you saved that 100-150 euro every month, 
    you'd not afford buying it after 30 years, assuming 
    it stayed at the same price-point.

The thing is that many people don't have an extra 150 euros per month (not to mention ~50k euros for the down payment) to save or invest in a mortgage, they spend everything they earn every month even when renting.

If you're in a position where you have extra money and you can choose whether to invest it in the stock-market, buy a nice car, or put a down-payment+mortgage on a place to live it's a different consideration.

[pkolaczk]

This is the point I was making: renting is the only choice if you can't get a safe mortgage with good terms. And getting a mortgage with monthly payment X, when you could hardly pay more than X would be a very risky option and even if some (crazy) bank agreed to it, they would set a very high interest rate for covering the risk. But getting a mortgage with a monthly payment X when you can really afford 4X is a totally different story.

[xyzzyz]

While Berlin is a bit special case with its housing supply, renting is actually crazy expensive in Poland. You should compare the prices to e.g. Lithuania or Estonia, the difference in affordability is mindblowing.