I said suburbs in Europe, not downtown. Downtown is unaffordable EVERYWHERE in the world, even in 3rd world countries.

Suburbs are cheap where? On what salary? Munich suburbs are equally unaffordable to buy something on a Munich wage, unless you're talking about buying in the boonies where you need to drive everywhere but that's no longer the suburbs but a whole different city/village, or you're a high roller at a FAANG, but that excludes 95% of working class people.

My ex originally is from there and I used to work there and my colleagues from the Texas office had more purchasing power at local real-estate than their counterparts from the Munich office.

you said Munich. Go look at Berlin.