How Much $400K Will Get You in Paris (and All the Other Cities You’ve Dreamed of Living In)

Odds are by now, if you had a big summer trip planned for this year, it’s over and done with. As you scroll through your vacation photos and return your freshly stamped passport to your desk drawer, a question might come to mind: Should I move abroad? Combine your Under the Tuscan Sun fantasies with all the news around rising interest rates in the U.S., and you will probably find yourself looking at real estate in faraway places. Luckily, Forex Suggest has created a tool that’ll help you wrap your head around what it means to actually take the leap. Its new calculator reveals the average size of a downtown property you could afford in more than 65 countries. 

Curious ourselves, we plugged in the median existing home sale price, which is currently $410,200, according to Forbes’s August report. Read on to see just how much room this budget will get you in five major destinations abroad.

Hong Kong: 154 Square Feet

Overall, Hong Kong proved to be the most expensive location to own an apartment, with an average two-bedroom property costing a cool $2,123,400. So what happens if you cut that budget by more than a quarter? You’d have to squeeze your belongings into 154 square feet. But with sliding walls and multifunctional cabinets, anything is possible. 

London: 168 Square Feet

London is the city with the second most expensive property: The average price of a centrally located two-bedroom apartment is $1,951,900. On a roughly $400,000 budget, you can score a 168-square-foot flat that, if you’re clever about it, you can still pack loads of color and pattern into—the British way. 

Paris: 278 Square Feet

Going across the English Channel to Paris gets you around 100 more square feet. Author Maya Dorsey knows the hunt all too well. She and her husband started saving money two years in advance of buying their place in Saint-Ouen, which involved opening up a savings account called a CEL that’s meant for purchasing property. 

Sydney: 502 Square Feet

For packing everything into a tiny Sydney cottage, look no further than Liz and Tim Elton’s home for inspiration. They used the empty space below the stairway for additional kitchen cabinetry, lofted the home office, and hid the TV with large bifold doors. 

Copenhagen: 832 Square Feet

The beauty of having more space to spread out is you can go wild with paint. Céline Hallas reminded us of this with her Technicolor Copenhagen home: You can have a bubblegum pink bedroom and a dark green kitchen and never feel overwhelmed.