I'm guessing you live in Detroit?

it depends on where you live, im sure not every house in australia costs 500,000.

here in munich you can get a decent little house with garden probably for around 600-700,000. but where my dad lives, in the center of germany you can get a huge mansion with garden for around 400,000

4 Bed semi detached about 200k
3 Bed Semi Detached about 150k

Before the bubble (1998) they were about 65k and 60k respectively, during the bubble (2007) they went to about 450k and 400k, an interesting difference that nearly equates the original value of one of the houses.

Differs greatly on location and size.

In cities it's much more than in the countryside, but then you probably earn less too. In the south-west much more than in the north-east, depending on a general gradient of wealth and higher population density in the south. Then there are quite old and small houses and modern, newly built spacious houses.

Somewhere between 100k$ and 500k$, most likely around 200k$.

As others have said: location, location, location.

A small and old single-room flat in the very heart of Helsinki centre costs much more than a big new house on the countryside on some dying area where the local factory or paper mill closed its doors recently.

Unlike with many other "goods", houses and apartments cost exactly the maximum what people are ready to pay for it. After all, basically all apartments are sold in an auction where the highest bidder gets it. The same doesn't really apply to food, computers, games, even cars. Ok, with second-hand they might, on Ebay and such. And the apartment sales are bound by location, ie. you can't sell the cheap house from the countryside to the city-dwellers.

It varies massively depending on area, schools etc.

We live in a fairly small chalet-style detached house. 3 bedrooms, although one of those is downstairs and is really more of a study. We paid nearly £250,000 for it. I estimate a good 50k of that is down to the local school.

Thought it was alot cheaper in the suburbs, 300K can get you a decent house over there? I've been to Brisbane on a tour and I've asked the landlord but that was in 2004.

XD No. 750 miles from Detroit.
I live on the tip of the U.P. where no one but nut jobs want to live so houses are cheap, even the big ones.

My brother lives in California, where everyone wants to live so it's just the opposite.

Brisbane is very different to Melbourne/Sydney. In Melbourne there is almost nothing selling for 300K.

As I said before, Australia is a big country.

But ok, if I mention the exact area where I live (suburb in a "big" city), I'd say a 50m2 two room apartment (which is probably the most sought after apartment type in this area) costs anything upwards from 100.000 euros.

100.000 euros if it is some old apartment built in the 60s or 70s needing renovation, major overhaul or especially plumbing renovation (which will cost A LOT extra and means also that you have to move out of the apartment for several weeks, if not months).

A new apartment of similar size probably costs twice that, 200.000 euros. It also increases price if you own part of the land where the apartment house sits (like I do), or if the land is rented from the city and you only own the apartment from the house sitting on that land.

More than the pricing, I'm more interested to know how much room people living in big cities over the world have (rural areas don't count, I guess you can build as big house as you can). Does 50m2 flat sound too tiny for even one person to live in? Then again, I've read stories how people living in Manhattan or whatever pay high prices for very tiny one-room apartments which have so little room that they can't even have a kitchenette in there to cook their own food (no place for oven etc.), but have to eat outside (or take-aways).

Extremely dependent on location. And if it's free standing or if it is a serial house. And on house size, of course. North of Germany in the country you can get a smallish free-standing house for 100 k€ (about 130 k$), same house in a city in southern Germany will cost 300.000 € or more (400 k$). Same house in a high profile area like Munich or the pretty parts of Heidelberg you can add at least another 100.000 €. Here where I live a decent free-standing one family house is about 350.000 € (460 k$). A serial house of the same size is about 270.000 (350 k$)

The current average cost of the m2 in my city is between 3k-5k euros (pre-owned market) and 4k-7k (new-construction market).

So much you either are a millionaire or you take a 30 years loan to afford it.

In Italy, house prices are going down like a waterfall while entrepreneurs don't stop building'em. I had the money, I would buy a house right now. But I have next to no money at all like a growing part of people of my age, so I expect that prices will go down further and further. It's a bubble waiting to burst, and I'm looking forward to see the outcomes....