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I wonder if it plays a role in mid/eastern europe that many work in Germany etc and are then able to afford a house in their homecountries.
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It's just not common in Germany to buy apartments. People either rent, and if they want to buy, they buy a house. Most apartment buildings belong to big companies and not to smaller landlords, making it also not cheaper or in any way attractive to buy an apartment.
In Eastern Europe apartment ownership is very common on the other hand. All the old Soviet blocks have individual ownership of each apartment in it, and the buildings are maintained by groups of people who own the apartments in that building (I forgot the word, not a native English speaker, sorry. But basically like a union out of each owner in the building, there's monthly meetings to decide stuff etc). Landlords usually will not be big companies like in Germany, but just private persons who have had the apartment in their family for a long time. This also makes it easier to buy an apartment, if you don't want to rent.
It's just very different structures and mentalities. When I still lived in Germany I found it stupid to ever buy an apartment and would have just rented forever, since house prices are astronomical. Now I live in Eastern Europe and it took some time to adjust, but it's really just the norm here to buy or own an apartment at some point in your live and most natives I know here own one, or live in a place that a family member owns.
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Most people in Germany simply can't afford to buy an apartment, let alone a house.
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All the old Soviet blocks have individual ownership of each apartment in it, and the buildings are maintained by groups of people who own the apartments in that building (I forgot the word, not a native English speaker, sorry. But basically like a union out of each owner in the building, there's monthly meetings to decide stuff etc).
The word you're looking for is probably "cooperative"
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Nope a cooperative would own the entire apartment building and the residents own shares in the cooperative. What Lost is describing is a homeowner association. There the individual apartments are directly owned by the residents.
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HOA would be the American term.
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I thought it would be a condo (condominium) board or association, since they're 'apartments' not detached single family homes.
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The concepts don't translate neatly. Generally I don't think most Europeans have different words for condominiums and apartments. And in my experience detached homes rarely belong to HOAs.
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I would guess that property prices in big cities are just not as inflated as in central and western Europe.
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