It's after tax. I earn 2.5k after tax.

That seems pretty low to me. Can you buy a house in Berlin with that income? It's almost what a dev makes in Romania and there you can buy a decent house with that income.

Buy?! You'll have hard time renting, and money is only part of the issue.

That does seem pretty low. I make 500 Euros less and I'm a junior Dev in Croatia, wouldn't move to Germany for that kind of money.

It is normal in Germany & even more so in the big cities like Berlin for people to rent their whole lives - there are a lot of tenants protections & rent control here that make that less risky.

So many people renting their whole lives sounds to me like in Germany most properties are owned by a privileged few and the remaining being forced to be their tennants. Does nobody see anything wrong with that? Rent control laws don't make this OK in my book.

Well there are indeed many people who call for expropriation now.

https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/civey-umfrage-fuer-den-ta...

If you're asking for my opinion residential real estate should be publicly owned, like hospitals, transport infrastructure, (public) schools/universities, etc.

Or at the very least the land under it should never be sold, only leased from the state.

Yes, consolidations on the market are a thing with an additional side effect - as owning a property is professonalized it’s even more difficult and expensive for an individual to own.

In the Netherlands that would be fairly normal too. Comes out to around €4000 per month pre-tax, or €56000 (12m + 2m bonus) per year.

2k net is doable but rare and becoming rarer. I guess the average is around 3k net.

Well I do…

By any chance, do you also happen to be Romanian? :)

Having talked with some Romanians, software professionals’ salaries in Romania are not far behind average German ones. They wouldn't be the first I would accuse of wage dumping (that would be Ukrainians, Russians, Bangladeshis, and Indians). It’s that everything else in Romania is shit.

Except the nationalities you listed are not EU while Romanians are. Thre's plenty of things wrong with Romania starting with the corruption, but I wouldn't say everything is shit. Othwewise the local tech hubs wouldn't be full of westerners working here. I also miss the above average wages and the above average women. :) Seeing the wages in Germany vs the property prices makes me feel poor.

No, German in Berlin.