I'm living in smaller-ish city in Spain, we rent ~120m2 2bedroom flat for ~650€ and it's city center so we don't even think about getting a car as it would be more hassle to take it out of the garage then actually walking to the nearest shop. Lots of squares / parks around usually full of kids playing :)
You have to sign over most of your future earnings to the guy who's selling you the property, in exchange for (hopefully) getting the next guy to fork over most of theirs. The game is so hardcore that the pyramid scheme is as strong as ever.
