I'm also guessing german europe (swiss, austria, germany) lives in an earthquake free zone, so they can make stone buildings without much consideration for earthquakes while most of the US population has to think about earthquakes and/or hurricanes, so housing is more likely to go towards flexible and flammable wood.
Actually, it's mostly a cost thing. US code allows very inexpensive building materials and practices relative to Europe.
I suspect that is a result of different cultural expectations related to who should be able to afford to own their own home - even if the homes don't last very long.
The choice of wood for residential housing is based on cost. Trees are plentiful in the U.S., so wood construction is the cheapest option. In countries without lots of trees, they’ll use concrete, stone, or something else.
Germany has plenty of wood, and ~300 years ago the majority of buildings were made from wood, with straw and clay as filler material, and straw roofs.
From my understanding the switch to stone was mostly for fire resistance. City walls lead to very dense cities where fire could spread rapidly. Stone walls with clay tile roofs make it much harder for any fire to spread within a building and to other buildings.
Today we would have the fire fighting techniques and more fire resistant wood panels, but old habits die hard (and we are used to buildings standing for hundreeds of years)
