The lowest priced house in Oakland California $235,000

[DFW]

26. It's insane in MOST of the world's large cities. Some of the smaller ones, too.

One of my guys here in Europe inherited the very modest house (actually half a duplex) he lives in from his dad. If he had lived in a country with US-style inheritance taxes, he would have had to sell it (since he couldn't afford both the inheritance taxes and paying off equal shares to his siblings) and move to someplace way out of town or even across the border, although that would have put him in an EU country, which he definitely did NOT want. His city has a population of about 200,000, though over 40% is foreign-born. Many purchases of houses these days are sales to price-is-no-object members of the Russian mafia/oligarchy, looking for safe havens in which to educate their kids without fear of them getting kidnapped. They don't grant residence visas to just anybody, but a $15 million investment is usually enough to do the trick.

In the home town of my sister-in-law, most people who work in town come in by commuter train, and often travel 2 hours each way to and from work, because no one can afford to live in town, and her home town of Tokyo is not exactly a small village.