In order to keep things on topic I'll ignore most of what you wrote and just talk about purchasing housing here. My wife and I just bought an apartment in Zürich and found it very different than the u.s. One must put down a minimum of 20% always, but we ended up having to put down 30% because the bank calculates your payments on a much higher interest rate than reality as well as higher maintenance fees than reality. We also had to have life insurance.