That may be true if you exclude Warsaw, Budapest, Prague, Bratislava, Bucharest, Sofia, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Sarajevo, Skopje, Riga, Talinn, Vilnius, Kiev, Bratislava and a few more: http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/rankings.jsp

Otherwise I agree with your 5 points. And Berlin is cheap in comparison with much of Western Europe.

I don't have original or better data but let's carefully say that from the anecdotes that reach me it would be useful to study what rent you would have to pay realistically (for an apartment and for office space) as a non-local coming to a given city. Specifically, as a start-up founder or engineer, you would most likely not want to live in the cheapest neighborhood, independent of if it's New York, Sofia, Warsaw, or Berlin.

tl;dr Most eastern European capitols might be a lot cheaper than Berlin but the linked data should not be trusted blindly.

[1] http://immobilienbewertung.immobilienscout24.de/karten/

I am sorry but this is simply wrong. There are social health and pension systems but both of them suck and are horrible broken. If you are under 30 and not nearly dead you should do everything possible to get out of those and take care of your self with private insurances.

It is broken by German / first-worlds standards, of course, with people not having access to something similar laughing about these claims, if it was remotely funny.

The other problem is that the prices are on a steady rise - the only easy way for private insurances to raise profits is taking it from their clients.

The way to go is public insurance with additional private extensions - it ensures that you can cancel your (sub)-contract without fearing about your general healcare plan.

There are ways - one example: just make sure you are employed and do not earn more than (roughly) 4500€ / m and tada: back.

"The other problem is that the prices are on a steady rise"

The same is true for the public insurance, beside they do not pay for the same services, medicaments,... as the private insurances. There are also better ways to prevent paying >600€/m when you are over 60. Just a matter of the right company / contract.

"The way to go is public insurance with additional private extensions - it ensures that you can cancel your (sub)-contract without fearing about your general healcare plan."

100% agree on this. If you are an employee.

//edit: not sure if this discussion fits here or if we, if there would be any interest, should use IRC or something else.

For the most part everything else you mentioned is true. I'm not sure about the work permissions. Berlin is an awesome city overall.

You will need German and or a translater when you talk to officials and you should get somebody with german knowledge before entering contracts, but by itself you will have an easy tiome getting around Berlin when you are in the startup relevant areas.

That is quite sad.

But on the other side I find it encouraging that you can come to Berlin and different to many other cities of this world can live here without being forced to speak the language fluently first.

And if you speak and think in english all day, it becomes more problematic to get on board with the language around you.

Plus many 'normal' people do start speaking a bit of english and at least understand it.

That said, if someone hasn't picked up a bit of German even after years, they're either extremely busy, or doing something wrong IMHO. On holidays, say in Spain, I always kind of disliked Germans sticking only to Germans, and speaking German all day. Surely you know what I mean? There's not having much time to learn the language, and there's being selfish that way.

I kind of feel the same way about this "it's a great, cheap place" stuff. This way it's not going to stay cheap, or cool, for long. It's already kind of suffered, if locals are to be believed. So let's leave it at least as nice as we found it? :)

The best thing about Berlin is the soul and the heart, not the commodities. I mean yeah, startups boom, but Tacheles is struggling - what's up with that? When in Rome, do as the Romans.. well then, if you move to Berlin, start learning German by listening to some Ton Steine Scherben :P

All of this wasn't meant as an attack. As a slight snark maybe. But not more, because generally, I'm super happy for people coming here and making it even better, I'd be a hypocrite otherwise. I'm just missing the voice of Berlin in all this. I mean that. Berlin is more funky, more beautiful and more clever than booms and VC give it credit for. To move to Berlin and not smell those particular roses strikes me as a tragedy.

The collapse of Communism and the Soviet Union was a critical factor in unleashing the internet wave of innovation that is still cresting today; though this occurred contemporaneously with the technological breakthroughs of the early 90s, the importance of the fall of the USSR in unleashing the web is not as widely appreciated as it was in the 90s.

[1] And that's saying something; see 'The Lives of Others'.

Why is this true? Honest question, how can a great large Western European city cost a fraction of other, even Eastern European cities?

Was there a sudden glut of real estate recently? A lot of people suddenly leaving Berlin? But why would they leave if it so great? I am really puzzled by this.

Right, but the original comment claims is cheaper even than most East European capitals, most of which were and still are in even worse economic shape than East Berlin.

The other claim is that it's actually a great city, but you say that other cities probably have more economic opportunity which does explain why Berlin might be so cheap.

In the past 20 years things have improved quite a bit in terms of renovation, but it takes time for population to build up again, and thus the costs are still low because there is abundant supply.

As to pre-war architecture, all of Europe, including Eastern Europe is full of it.

The only thing which might give me some insight is that you mention it takes time for the population to build back up?

So rents are cheap because Berlin is today still under populated?

But why is that? Or why are other formerly bombed out cities not also under populated? In Easter Europe there is still a lot of migration from the smaller cities and villages into the big cities. This may be why those are more expensive than Berlin. But that only begs the question why is Berlin specifically so slow to re-populate? Is it because other German large cities, even with higher rent, are more attractive? Which would explain why the rent there is higher?

That may have been a little harsh, but I couldn't resist.

I'm not sure everyone feels that prewar residences are a good thing. For many of us, it's sort of a reminder of everything that, you know, happened.

Putting the war behind us is a good thing. Getting cheaper housing prices because Berlin has never entirely gotten over the war... is not putting the war behind us. In fact, it's capitalizing today on the lingering effects of the war.

The upshot is that I had quite a chip on my shoulder in my 20's.

I outgrew that. So I'd suggest, if I may be so bold, not to stay stuck in a past you can't change. Don't miss out on what's there now (wherever "there" is for you). Right now Berlin is awesome. I'd be there if my partner didn't have the opportunity of a lifetime as an economist at the Bank of England.

Oh and if you're looking for well paid work in Berlin, brush up on WinRT and go knock on Nokia's door. That company is amazing. Well, the Berlin bunch are.

You mean war profiteering of real-estate values? Honestly, you Germans would be much less creepy if you stopped trying to pretend WW2 and the Shoah never happened and everything is totally happy-shiny now. You certainly don't have to apologize anymore, but you could at least have the decency to act uncomfortable about marketing apartments that are available for low, low, low prices (/salesman voice) primarily because their former residents were killed in war and genocide. You're not supposed to personally feel guilty, but you're not supposed to feel upbeat about it, either.

But hey, I know how it feels being called a Nazi.

HN is not a forum for prejudice.

You don't see anything disturbing about that sentence? Nothing at all? No somewhat-disturbing suggestion that apartment renters today can happily reap the benefits of dispossession and war?

Living on the eastern side of the wall, rents are cheap.

The main thing that keeps us from relocating there more permanently is the immigration issue, but it looks like this may be resolved, at least partially.

One thing though, you probably do want to learn German. While many germans speak english (even more so in the startup scene) a lot of germans don't, and day to day life involves a fair bit of basic german.

But, certainly worth the effort!

Real estate-wise Berlin has (or at least had until recently) a surplus of vacancies: both apartments and commercial buildings. This is partly due to fluctuations in population throughout its history, and steep declines in manufacturing and population during the wall years from their pre-WW2 heights. There were also huge swaths of prime central real estate throughout the city where the wall once stood, that was unusable until it came down.

What you end up with is a city that was originally planned and built for more people than live there, with vacant factories, warehouses, and office buildings from yesteryear that are readily and cheaply repurposed.

Berlin's population is growing these days though, and internationals, people from other parts of Europe, and other parts of Germany are flocking to the city. This means rent prices are on the rise, and vacancy is dropping. It's still way cheaper than any other major European city — for now.

If you go to southern German states like Bayern, Baden-Württemberg or Hessen, cost of living is much higher in the larger cities there than in Berlin. That's because of the export industry which has been able to grow there for the last decades, and the resulting abundance of high paying jobs.

Also after reunification, East-Berlin was vastly unpopulated, people moving into the already modern West-Germany, while the former GDR was being restored. Nowadays there is hardly any differnece between East- and West-Berlin, but there is uninhabitated room. It is getting fewer though.

I live in a city that gets much colder than that in the winters, but still has plenty of bicyclists year round. It's all a matter of perspective.

Certainly getting around on the u-bahn was perfectly comfortable and the s-bahn was fine too.

Really didn't mind it much at all.

In Germany, the rate of successful murders is 1.0 per 100000 inhabitants: http://www.bka.de/nn_229340/SharedDocs/Downloads/DE/Publikat... ("vollendete Fälle")

The murder rate in the US is 5.7: http://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/06statab/law.pdf

The rate for Berlin is higher, but thats true for American cities as well. So, getting killed in Germany is much more unlikely than getting killed in the US in general.

Also, while any extremist murder is a horrible thing, the rates in Germany are low in general. There is an exhaustive list of right-extremists murders in germany on Wikipedia:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Todesopfer_rechtsextremer_Gewal...

In 2012, there is no noted case, but that might be because those are still in court (This list only lists cases where the Judge determined the motivation to be extremist). Ignoring the number, you will find that if you really want to get killed by Nazis, going to Berlin is the worst plan, rates in other parts of Germany are much higher. There are admittedly places where I wouldn't go with black skin color because of fear of aggression, but Berlin and all larger towns are not among those.