And we thought NYC was expensive

Such a pessimist! Mexico is closer, the weather is nice and warm, and you have much easier access to drugs. Your retirement money is less likely to run out before you die.

"Your retirement money is less likely to run out before you die."

Depends if the druglords request a couple early withdrawals.

"Depends if the druglords request a couple early withdrawals."

Except just about everything is available legally at La Pharmacia.....or you can grow yourself. :D

Italy on the whole is actually quite cheap, particularly to BUY property. Keep in mind that House Hunters International is a TV show, and they're looking in the highest-rent districts of ROME. It's a fantasy show, not quite but certainly near the calibre of "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous." It's not meant to be a house hunting guide for "normal" people.

NYCMatt: Do you actually watch that show? About half the time they're working with people with very meager budgets trying to buy falling-down shacks with no plumbing in the middle of nowhere. Last night there was some guy from England trying to buy a vacation home in the mountains of Bulgaria; one of his options involved a house in which none of the rooms connected inside the building, and all of them were less than something like $100K.

NYCMatt, jordyn is right - there's quite a range of buyer budgets on the show. I've seen people looking for $150k homes, up to a couple million. I think that's hardly "fantasy" for many people in this city especially.

a 250sqf (that's right) rents for $750 euros ($1000-1100) in Paris. IF you qualify (because renters are heavily protected by laws, landlords use draconian rules). The average price is 8000euros/sqm ($1000-1100/sqft).A decent neighborhood (equivalent of Manhattan)is above 10k. I saw that show:it's all true.

why would you retire in rome? my sister and i have a plan, when we're old and our husbands are dead we'll buy a b&b on the lido, one of those huge spectacular byzantine-ish houses surrounded by gardens. we'll garden, we'll have dogs, our families can come visit whenever they want. now, to just get old before we get poor, that's the trick.

the reason you retire in Rome is healthcare is free.

and italians are nothing if not generous to a fault about sharing their state benefits with immigrants who never paid taxes in italy.

how are property and city taxes.. are doormans unionized (maintenance)..

"the reason you retire in Rome is healthcare is free"...hey, but we have medicare too....:}

I rented a couple studios in paris last year, short term, and was surprised at how low rents can be. However, prices were 1000 euros psf or higher for the units I was in (don't remember the exact number but I discussed it with the landlords), so the proverbial rent/buy ratio was awful. One was a classic older building third floor walkup next to Picasso Musee on rue thorigny (great area), and the other was on rue de roquette in a 70s modern building with a huge interior courtyard park (a cool area, not far from bastille). These prices make me skeptical that there would be super price implosion in manhattan...just too many global people want apartments in places like paris, ny, and london. Also..I forget the exact issue..but the French are trying to cut down on the absentee owner of Paris apartments, and there were a bunch of articles last year about some issue (taxes, if i recall, or maybe something that actually forbids temp renting) that would really hammer the legions of absentee landlords if actually enforced.

Living in western Europe requires getting used to paying 4$ for a coke...it ain't cheap.

medicare can bankrupt you faster than a hurricane.even when fully covered.They will go after your assets. Not in western europe.
City and property taxes are very very low. for the aforementioned studio $1000/year in real eastate tax. per year (not month).(the scam in the us is to use property to fund the unionized teachers).Doormen are very rare (and not worth the cost in my opinion).

by the way, i have no stats on it but my impression is that there was a big runup for years in paris apartment prices, so maybe you could call it a bubble. I don't have details, just this impression from a couple anecdotes.

In Monaco a studio starts at like 1.1M euros.

Monaco: the original "sunny place for shady people"

how low rents can be? hmmm. I net more money on my rentals in paris than new york. that is equalizing for size. places are small in europe. and NO amenities.
They made keeping a rental empty illegal, and renting shortterms illegal too.Simply the laws are so skewed to the tenant that llandlords stop renting. you can't get an eviction before 2 years. And socialists always taking problems in reverse made it illegal to not rent: smart no?
Western europe valuations are still bubbly (except Berlin and bruxelles).

"the scam in the us is to use property to fund the unionized teachers"..

ahh to be a teacher and not have to pay a dime for any of my healthcare or pension contribution..

you forgot to add cops in NY metro who retire on 6 figure pension 'disability' at 47 years old, then get another municipal job making close to 6 figures.. under the guise of 'safety'

funny how BLS statistics show nurses, civil engineers, cab drivers, auto mechanics et al all have higher death/injury on the job rate than cops..

monaco is a fiscal heaven. not a normal market.it's mafia owned too.and doormen there spy on the occupants to the govnement.And one day, "a problem" arises. and you're trapped bc the money wasn't even supposed to be in the country. And if you sue, your other govenment will be notified and back taxes....
Monaco is a fraudster center (like wall street)

Maybe it was luck, but I just put an add on craigslist. I paid 50 euros a night for one and 60 for the other...It was March or April, not the busiest time, but there were other choices in the same price range. Both were small and nice, but very different since one was a modern building.

cops somehow have a function. I was never convinced teachers have a net added value. (my opinion)

(i presume that an actual long term lease would be cheaper....)

all my tenants are long term.

just watched it..damn she gets free subsidized housing, must feel good to pimp kids for gelato

i didn't understand who pays for all this (she gets 4500 hosusing stipend a month which is huge for a teaching job).

I was in Paris. No need to mention Parisians do not visit the burbs. What expertise do you bring to the topic? Brooklyn gay saunas?

I'd have thought you would choose a less revealing pseudo

LOL..top here on manhunt FWIW, Manhattan tho

and now for your coup de grace nicercatch:

youre a homophobe too

you must be very popular in our fine city

"cops somehow have a function. I was never convinced teachers have a net added value. (my opinion)"

Fortunately, we don't need your opinion since some people have already done some analysis on this point:

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/when-good-teaching-pays-off/

Looks like a good kindergarten teacher is worth something like $320K a year. Sounds like we're getting a deal!

(I do agree that the teachers union does a pretty good job of guaranteeing that we overplay for a bunch of crappy teachers as well, so we could do a lot better if we had better market incentives/rewards for teachers.)

Thanks for the info, nicercatch. I find Monaco dull. I'd like to buy or rent a 1 bdrm close to Nice. Any ideas?

How much is docking space in Nice?
http://www.apolloduck.fr/listings.phtml?cid=81

:)

hey lucille, dont forget to add into your equation how to off your likely breadwinner and poor slob prematurely. ahhhhh, one must have dreams.....

WBOTTOM: did u remove your insulting post? the nerve! first you insult on a post where you have no knowledge whatsoever (ur a tenant in brooklyn right? what do u know about international RE?), then you get offended when it gets personal? but you asked for it. not me. I live in Chelsea and could not care less what you do with your ass.Now stop crying and be a man.

dwell: sorry for the digression but wbottom is too heavy. unfortunately I don't know the riviera too much from a business point of view (monaco is adifferent bird).try 123immo.com . or google (plenty of brokers cater to the american clientele there, and I heard Madoff sold his place there)

"What expertise do you bring to the topic? Brooklyn gay saunas?"

nice

re be a man, youre pretty bold on the board--bet not the case were i in your face

maybe some day

http://michaelstolerrealestatereport.blogspot.com/

For the second year in a row, Monte Carlo is ranked in the Global Property Guide's list of the World's Most Expensive residential real estate market

In ninth, place, is Rome, Italy at $851.50 psf.

Tokyo as the most crowded city, ranking this city as number seven at a price of $1,103 psf.

Paris: the price square foot of $1,126.20 psf or the sixth position.

Manhattan, ranks in fourth position at a price per square foot of $1,384.

London ranks in third position in residential price per square foot in the third position at a price of $1,928 psf.

Moscow, a city which will cost a purchaser a price of $1,937 psf, ranking in second position.

Monte Carlo, Monaco, ranks in first position at a price per square foot of $4,420. According the 2010 Knight Frank Wealth Report, Monaco prices averaged from $4,300 to $5,900 per square foot.

nicercatch, don't mind Wbottom; he seems to have turned into the resident tough guy, though he wouldn't be the first to do so on an anonymous internet message board.

hey lucille, dont forget to add into your equation how to off your likely breadwinner and poor slob prematurely

done and done. about 2 years ago i roofied him and had these really nice guys i found on craigslist implant an explosive device into his wooden leg set to go off at 6:15am on his 62nd birthday.

but thanks rangersfan, good lookin out.

lol! lucillemiss. love the lido dream. So beautiful there.

Im sure House Hunters and the real estate sites i was looking at are probably aimed at foreigners.....i bet the locals know where to buy/rent in rome at affordable rates.......

Any cities in western europe sort of a bargain?...Brussels certainly cheaper than Paris but I couldn't convince myself I was in a version of Paris, only smaller and cheaper; I tried though. Berlin may be cool but I'd rather be in a romance language country. Spain has been correcting in terms of prices, but I don't know if that effects central Bcn, which could be a cool place to live (cool city, easy connections to europe now with various airlines; beach nearby, nice vibe).

if you want you and dwell can come stay at our place. but don't bring rangersfan.

Thanks Lucille. I remember sitting at one of the hotels there, saw lots of hummingbirds drinking nectar from flowers. Water crystal clear, beautiful purple sea shells. And a short ride to Venice. Yep, perfect location.

dwell: a few considerations on the list
first monaco is an outlier: mostly people/corporate entities avoiding tax (no tax in monaco: the tax is the RE price, but u get it back at resale). Moscow is somewhat in the same category with the added caveat that their currency (ruble)is a commodity currency which skewes things.
Western Europe is still in a bubble. I follow valuation models in Paris: they are completely out of wack.
Manhattan is NYC. international crowd only considers Manhattan as NYC. just like the ranking.
The euro valuation and absence of VAT in the US makes Manhattan relatively cheap to live in (my friends come to the city, buy luggage,fill the luggage with clothes and go back home with it: the cost differential pays for the trip).

buyerbuyer: bruxelles is very provincial.they have ethnic issues (split of Belgium?)but it is a good deal investment wise.berlin also.London and Paris have very low roi at this time.

Studios in Rome selling for $500k...welcome to Manhattan.

Very interesting, nicercatch. I agree with much of it. I hear you re: no tax in Monaco, but, I realized I hated the ubiquitous surveillance. Felt like Patrick McGoohan in The Prisoner, it was just too much. It also felt very ersatz & over built, as if Grimaldi & Co has become Disney. Perhaps a little apt on the Promenade des Anglais would suit me better.

Just back from Monaco...busy servicing Princess Stephanie (talk about a royal pain).
The prices in Monaco are high but they are inflated to keep out the riff-raff.
Now I'm back in the Big Apple where the little losers bark at each other over the future price of a studio.
Great to be home.

Stephanie? Hope you used protection.

stephanie? no. I would use protection with Albert. the (unkept)secret is his boyfriend wo is an american radiologist who became chairman of the radiology dept at Princesse Grace Hosp. A very fine husband. But he's now covered up with an illegitimate (metis) french boy and a very proper looking (fake) blond wife. Everybody knows of course except the brooklyn crowd.
ahhhhhh. montecarl (the french elite says montecarl, not montecarlo, nor monaco).good morals and clean money.

lucileebluthtooth, sounds like a vagay sandwhich for you gals. holla. funny, just heard mr bluthtooth dream was to ship you to lido so he can continue humpin the local dunkin donuts gal he has befriended during your dreamy aspirations.....

sorry I meant blond fake wife rather than fake blond wife. she's a real blond, a real fake wife

was his wooden leg a casuality of you pushing him into the woodchipper? wake up mr bluthtooth, the mrs is plottin your demise and gardening in utopia while u slave away hopin to catch a few extra precious moments with ms dunkin donuts.

dwell, we've had these plans since we were kids, there is just something about venice that always felt so right to me, like i'm home. but it did cross into the unattainable dream territory after we both reproduced. still, there is hope that our children will grow up to be ungrateful bastards and we won't feel too bad about leaving the continent and them behind. if not venice, i would go to eastern europe. western europe as western culture knows it doesn't really exist anymore. is it an old chinese curse? may you live in interesting times? well, we do indeed.

rangersfan, his only dream in that respect is to die before he has to pay someone to change his diapers

hmmmmm, well heres to your dream then. just make sure karma doesnt bite u in the ass and when it comes time to change ur diapers that ur sister isnt off in lidos magical gardens and the mister hasnt decided to bunk with ms dunkin donuts. all else should be fine though in your aspirational dream land.

i wish you were more fun. but you're not.

ahhhhh, well mr tooth should have a couple of miles left in him. i say roll him over but just dont ask him for a latte to go - he may never come back.

just make sure karma doesnt bite u in the ass and when it comes time to change ur diapers

i have no problem paying someone to change me when the time comes, and it will.

well now thats the most sensible thing you have posted to date.

you're strange

thanks.

are you the conservative troll or the gay one? i just can't tell

far from gay so thats out. conservative, prolly no on that too. just like to pipe up now and then when the crazies take over the boards on either side of the coin. was feelin bad for mr tooth given ur earlier post. plus, u said u werent comin back yet here u are a mere few weeks away from giving your farewell adieu. i told u that u would be back. so tell me now, who is the troll or dragon in disguise?

not that you can't be both conservative and gay

not that there is anyting wrong with that......

why do you feel bad for my husband? you know i'm joking, right? he's the love of my life. and he's not really the breadwinner, not in the traditional sense, anyway. the income from my trust equals to about 70% of his salary on average since we've been together, and he has a trust as well. don't worry about mr. bluth, he's a-okay, really.

"u said u werent comin back yet here u are a mere few weeks away from giving your farewell adieu"

i'm not an important person on this board, so why does that even matter? who cares?

okay then. good for the tooths i say. and good luck with those lido gardens, i am sure there is an eat, pray,love storyline in there somewhere. excuse me while i suck down a single malt.

lido is so nice, you should really go. not familiar with eat pray love. don't watch mindnumbing chickflicks out of principle.

I bought a place in Tel Aviv and found it to be the most perfect solution for everything: I can be in Rome for dinner in 2 hours, I can be in Paris in 2.5 hours, and so on. And be on the beautiful beach any time Mr. Bloomberg doesn't do his job.

My wife rents out her Rome apartment for 2,700 euros/month. She gave it up when I married her and we moved to London then NYC. The apartment directly above with the same layout recently sold for 1.5 million euros. It's about 2,500 square feet and located just outside the old city walls in a prime location. The renters also pay about 5,000/year for the apartment maintenance charges and another 1,500/year for garbage/water etc. And they also bring their own kitchen, which is standard and I'll never understand. In the end, rental yields suck, probably worse than NYC.

The funniest thing was the first tenants were an elderly couple and they guy was a former general who was chief of the carabinieri or military police. And he was a huge fascist, built a memorial to Mussolini in one of the rooms. My wife was not happy. He was a really nice guy, but recently died.

My wife's family has a country house on the Umbrian/Lazio border and the first time I visited I noticed they had huge cathedral ceilings that were covered by cotton fabric strung across the rooms about 10 feet off the ground. So I naturally asked why they'd hide the beautiful cathedral ceilings. Turns out when they built the house they violated the CUBIC footage rules for the region. Anonymous complaint, police visit, court hearing and the solution was cotton covers. You better understand the strange world of Italian real estate if you ever plan on buying there!

2700 euros for a 2500 sq ft apt is actually a GREAT deal! Cant find that in nyc! But i dont get why the renters pay the mtce and garbage.....so it would average 3200 per month....still not bad for 2500 sq ft.....i heard that when people buy homes they bring their own kitchens...but never heard that about renting?

As a "House hunters international" fanatic, I was surprised last night to see that $1.9 million US dollars gets you a fixer upper in Jerusalem.

"i heard that when people buy homes they bring their own kitchens...but never heard that about renting?"

We have our own stupidities too in the US. For example, blinds in NYC. Or else refrigerators in LA.

NYC is not nearly as expansive as Calgary, but it is denser.

I used to own/rent out a 1/bd in Paris (Marais) and in Rome (via Fiume) and ended up renting to short-term to Americans and Brits because it's impossible to get rid of the awful regular renters. Sold in Paris at a loss but for a big profit in Rome.
KeithB, it's such a limited stock in Jerusalem, it's not surprising the prices are so high. Tel Aviv is it.

Really interesting conversation. I too am a House Hunters Intern'l fan. Wish they'd do follow up shows for the fixer upper wrecks, like Amalfi & Morocco.

Goldie: why do rental yields suck in Rome?
Stakan: Was the market bad when you sold the Paris apt?
I fantasize about buying an apt abroad, but then I feel like, it'd be too much of a headache, so just rent.

I will be building in Costa Rica this year, own the land already. Maybe I'll do a blog? My own house hunters international....lol.

GAF ViewMaster, dwell. It does the job with no hassle.

dwell, I just wanted to sell in a rush, for personal reasons. I'd say do NOT buy overseas unless you plan to spend at least 6 mo/year out there. Otherwise, hotels and ... rent?

Keith, yes, hope you blog & good luck w/ the project

alan: http://www.landofthelost.com/talking.htm

stakan, Thanks for the advice. Yes, hotels: doormen & maid service. International RE fantasy has been exorcised.