> there's a lot of crime

This is maybe the biggest difference between America and other developed countries when it comes to this subject. You'll find that a fifth-percentile priced home in Spain, Korea, or Australia will be in a rural area with not a lot of economic prospects, but in the US you'll have the additional burden of finding a meth lab next door or being a homicide victim.

In the US, it's probably more about being in a bad area of Detroit (or even cities that are considered much more elite) than being rural with a meth lab next door but I don't really disagree with your basic point though I'd have to look at the actual stats. Not sure that US rural areas in general have a big crime problem relative to areas of some cities.

Yeah, you're probably right. To restate my point, it's that buying a cheap house in the US comes with risks to one's basic safety that you don't find in other developed countries.

Although I'm not sure that's true in general outside of bad areas of cities--which do also exist in other developed countries. Maybe some rural areas are iffy but many inexpensive ones are really not.

There is plenty of cheap rural housing in places without a lot of crime in the US. The other problems still hold however.

Yeah. In that case, I was thinking more about cheaper housing in especially 2nd/3rd tier cities. Rural areas are, in general, fairly safe.