NaplesItaly
€500k buys~176 m² — a large flatat €2,844/m²
6.6%Gross yield
€2,746Rent / mo
€329,520Rent over 10 yrs
One sum, 9 possible lives
What €500k buys across Europe
This is the story of one sum of money and the different lives it could lead. €500k leaves your account exactly once; the city it lands in decides what it becomes — a working flat with a tenant and a payback date, or a handsome view that never sends anything home. Below, the same €500k walks into every city on live prices: the exact size it clears, the rent it earns, and a real listing it could have bought, captured the month shown.
The same €500k buys ~176 m² in Naples at 6.6% — and ~52 m² in Paris at 4.2%. Same cash, a different life and a different payback.
Nobody wires money to Europe by accident, but almost everyone wires it to a city chosen years earlier, on a holiday, before a single number was checked. So the money arrives pre-committed and does what it’s told: in one market it goes to work the week the tenant signs, in another it retires on the spot into a pretty view. Same €500k, opposite fates, and the difference was decided on a beach. The walk below runs the choice in the other order. Let the money tour every city first, watch what each one would turn it into, and only then let the heart back into the room. It’s a better negotiator when it arrives second.
ValenciaSpain
€500k buys~114 m² — a 3-bedat €4,397/m²
6.5%Gross yield
€2,736Rent / mo
€328,320Rent over 10 yrs
BarcelonaSpain
€500k buys~95 m² — a 3-bedat €5,275/m²
5.9%Gross yield
€2,470Rent / mo
€296,400Rent over 10 yrs
MadridSpain
€500k buys~89 m² — a 2-bedat €5,635/m²
5.5%Gross yield
€2,314Rent / mo
€277,680Rent over 10 yrs
MilanItaly
€500k buys~97 m² — a 3-bedat €5,165/m²
5.4%Gross yield
€2,260Rent / mo
€271,200Rent over 10 yrs
AthensGreece
€500k buys~156 m² — a large flatat €3,205/m²
4.9%Gross yield
€2,028Rent / mo
€243,360Rent over 10 yrs
LisbonPortugal
€500k buys~76 m² — a 2-bedat €6,556/m²
4.6%Gross yield
€1,900Rent / mo
€228,000Rent over 10 yrs
PortoPortugal
€500k buys~92 m² — a 2-bedat €5,455/m²
4.4%Gross yield
€1,840Rent / mo
€220,800Rent over 10 yrs
ParisFrance
€500k buys~52 m² — a 1-bedat €9,679/m²
4.2%Gross yield
€1,778Rent / mo
€213,360Rent over 10 yrs
How the story ends
Same €500k. Very different endings.
So the trip ends where it had to: the same money came home telling different stories. In Naples it found a tenant and started paying for itself; in Paris it bought more wall, more light, and a longer wait. No listing photo warns you which ending you’re buying. The difference hides in the rent against the price, the round-trip costs, the tax your passport triggers, and the rules the city plans to change next. This grid tells the story at city level. The flat you’re actually considering has its own version, one layer down, and that version is the one worth reading before the money leaves.
Found one you like the look of?
Run this for the exact flat you’re looking at. Paste any real listing into DealPilot AI and get the full four-strategy verdict — the honest yield, the round-trip costs, the taxes and the ten-year return — in 60 seconds. Before you sign, not after.
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