Australia has cloned the great American dream as well. When I lived in Sydney, real estate was all anybody ever talked about. Are you renting? Oh, too bad. Got

Australia has cloned the great American dream as well. When I lived in Sydney, real estate was all anybody ever talked about. Are you renting? Oh, too bad. Got to get on the property ladder, y'know. Yeah, my commute's about an hour and a half, if there's no trouble on the M5. I toughed it out on an oppressive mortage for thirty years out in the sticks, why can't you? Kids these days want it all. etc, etc. Coming to Tokyo was great. Sure, people still ask where you live, but the proximity to the train station is more important than how many bedrooms/entertainment centers are in your McMansion. The only time I've been asked if I own or rent is when relatives came to stay. I don't know if it's the after effect of the property bubble bursting, because the cheap construction materials means housing stock is not built to last, because good inner city locations are still too expensive to buy (despite said bubble bursting) so everyone rents, or just a culture that does not place much social cachet on property ownership. But it suits me.