How Many Months of Rent Would Buy You a Whole House?
We divided the median price of homes on RealHunt by three monthly rents. At €1,200 a month, a typical Italian village house costs less than three years of rent.
RealHunt Research · 2026-09-23
This is the comparison that surprises people most. If you pay €1,200 a month in rent, you hand over €14,400 a year. In three years that is €43,200, which is more than the median price of an Italian home on our site (€41,000).
That does not mean you should quit your lease tomorrow. A house in a village two hours from the nearest city is not the same thing as a flat near your job. But the comparison is useful because it puts a price you cannot picture (a house in another country) next to one you pay every month.
The table
We took the median price of the homes published on RealHunt in each country and divided it by three monthly rents: €800, €1,200 and €2,000. We did not use official rent figures for any city. Pick the column closest to what you pay.
| Country | Median home on RealHunt | Months at €800 | Months at €1,200 | Months at €2,000 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Italy | €41,000 | 51 | 34 | 20 |
| Japan | €51,980 | 65 | 43 | 26 |
| Sweden | €72,000 | 90 | 60 | 36 |
| Mexico | €80,920 | 101 | 67 | 40 |
| United States | €85,929 | 107 | 72 | 43 |
| Canada | €92,552 | 116 | 77 | 46 |
Across all 140 homes the median is €61,280. At €1,200 a month that is 51 months of rent, a little over four years.
What the table leaves out
Buying costs come first. They range from about 2% of the price in Sweden to about 10% in Italy, plus fixed fees. On each home page we show the estimate for that exact price.
Then there is the cost of keeping a house. Council tax on a small Italian village home is often a few hundred euros a year. In Sweden and Canada, heating in winter is the big one. In the US, property tax is set by the county and is usually shown in the listing. None of this is close to rent, but it is not zero.
And there is the part no spreadsheet captures: whether you actually want to live there. The cheapest homes are cheap because people left those places. Some are coming back to life with remote workers and retirees; others are quiet for a reason. Visit before you buy. Stay a week, in winter if you can.
Try it with your own rent
On every home page on RealHunt there is a line that says how many months of rent the house is worth. It uses a rough average rent for the city your browser is in. It is a nudge, not financial advice, but it is a fair way to see these prices.
Start with the cheapest: homes under €30,000.