google for any budgeting guidelines and you will repeatedly see 1/3 net pay for housing mentioned. Here (Germany) landlords will decide letting you rent their property based on that ratio.
Consider that since even in the US houshold medien income is $59k (gross) per year, spending 10% for housing (unless you already outright own) is not tenable for most families.
1/3 is the MAX allowed by any sane landlord / bank (though I think some go as high as 50% for renting at least).
If your household income is 60k gross, your net should be north of 50k (figure at least 2 adults, maybe some kids, your tax burden will be lowish). 10% of 50k gives you $416 a month. Where I live (Indiana), that can get you a mortgage payment on a house that cost about 110k (say 15-20k down). That is totally reasonable. In my town you can get a solid 3 bedroom house with a yard
I think most people spend far too high a % of their money on housing. Sometimes you can't help it (say, fresh out of college, moved to NYC for a big job). But a lot of people can, and still make bad choices.
3br with a yard will probably cost >€500k even in the remote suburbs around here. I think your case is particularly low priced for a city with a reasonable amount of jobs.
Well this is the US :) You posted median US income. The median family in the US lives in a small town, perhaps 50k-250k people. Most of them have similarly affordable towns. We are not suburbs of anything.. 90 minute drive from Chicago, but far enough to not really count as a burb.
I quoted US figures cause in other countries people generally earn less money (in Germany I think it converts to something like $50k/year).
But you're right that even here once you get far enough to not be reasonably commutable to one of the big cities prices plummet, just not sure which situation better represent the median family.
You can find rural/urban divides online but it's not quite the same if you consider people living in smaller towns are still being counted as urban...The biggest divide is probably between the super in-demand major cities (and their peripheries) vs everyone else.
This is further exaggerated here as Germany has the lowest birth rates in the world and one of the highest inbound immigration rates - which means the big cities are growing (as that's where immigrants are going) and the rest are deflating.
