12 ms·

I went to Tokyo this year and was shocked at how cheap it was compared to major North American cities. Meals like ramen were $8.00 USD including tax and tip. As

I went to Tokyo this year and was shocked at how cheap it was compared to major North American cities. Meals like ramen were $8.00 USD including tax and tip. Asked some young people how much rent was in Tokyo, "very expensive, young people need their parents help... $1,000 USD per month". Sums it up there, much cheaper than the US and Canada but salaries are so low it's expensive for them. My take away is that Japan has a rep for being super expensive when in fact it's now very cheap for North Americans.

chrisseaton 9y ago
> Meals like ramen were $8.00 USD including tax and tip. I thought Japan was a non-tipping culture?
- ue_ 9y ago
  Me too, I was advised by my host family in 2014 and 2015 not to tip, either. Though we may have all been wrong :)
- cgarrigue 9y ago
  There is indeed not tip. But he was comparing with the prices in USA, where you need to include tipping.
cgarrigue 9y ago
It's only cheap if you come to Japan for holidays, or if you're an expat detached by your company to Japan. If you're living in the country, receiving the same salary as any Japanese person, Tokyo is an expensive city. And I'm not even talking about language teachers, who cannot really live in Tokyo or all the Japanese people who are part-timers Everywhere in the world salaries, rents and prices go hand in hand. Unless you're living on one side of a border and working on the other side (which is possible in EU) which allow you to game the system, rents and prices are based on supply and demand. Don't take it personally, but it does not make much sense to compare what you would get with a salary from one country while living in another country.
- rtpg 9y ago
  Yeah salaries are pretty low in Tokyo for a lot of jobs, if you're on the lower end of the skill hierarchy you're going to be in pain. But ... it's not like low-skilled workers in SF are getting paid much either. The average HN reader might be in a better negotiating position w.r.t. salaries in Tokyo Some things to consider about Tokyo: - No need for a car, insurance that comes with - Your company will (in almost all cases) be paying for your daily transportation by car - If you're willing to suffer in the morning with travel/take a bus to the train station, you have a range of prices for renting - There are a lot of people living on low salaries, so there are a lot of services on the low end. 100 yen shops with high quality stuff, all things considered. For 60,000 yen/month you can get 20m2 studio appartments (25-year-old buildings) within 15 minutes of stations like Nippori or Otsuka. If you follow the "1/3rd of salary" rule, it's reasonable if you're making a bit over minimum wage (not sure what the going rate for English teachers are)
  - autokad 9y ago
    that contrasts with the reality that the average commute time in tokyo is 66 minutes (2011). I suspect the median is probably longer then that. SF is cherry picked, the most expensive place in the US. I live in Philadelphia and the commute time and cost is substantially lower. NYC would be the most appropriate comparison, and they get to work with nearly 20 minutes less commute. I bring up commute because many people have long commutes because they simply cant afford to live closer.
    - candiodari 9y ago
      Ah no worries. Give SF 30 years of declining revenue for all it's industries (like Japan), with several financial disasters during that time, and SF will not be expensive anymore either. Living within 66 minutes commute to SF will be positively easy.
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        Great! I can't wait for SF to become cheap enough so I can move there. ...
duality 9y ago
On a recent trip to Tokyo I was under the same impression about the low rents until I noticed that many apartments are a single room roughly 200-300 square feet in size.
ekianjo 9y ago
> Meals like ramen were $8.00 USD including tax and tip There is no tip in Japan. And 8 USD for Ramen is super expensive, in Kansai you can get ramen for 5 USD or even less. Ramen should not cost that much anyway, it's super fast to make and ingredients are super cheap too.
- dilemma 9y ago
  800 yen for ramen is standard and has been for years.
  - EliRivers 9y ago
    You must be going to the fancy places. Yoshinoya's a lot cheaper, and that's for a beef bowl rather than just ramen.
  - chrischen 9y ago
    The 1-michelin star ramen place is 1500 yen all in.
    - 6t6t6t6 9y ago
      There's a 1-michelin star ramen next to my house that serves ramen for 800 yen. http://gm.gnavi.co.jp/shop/0117018901/ http://gm.gnavi.co.jp/shop/0117018901/
      - merb 9y ago
        damn that is cheap. consider their a la carte ranges from 700-1000. I live in germany near freiburg and all michelin star rated restaurants here start at like ~3200 yen per meal. (well there is prolly an exception an japanese restaurant in freiburg which serves from 600-~3200 yen per meal)
      - qarioz 9y ago
        It's not Michelin but Bib Gourmand
  - 9y ago
branchless 9y ago
This doesn't make any sense. Why would you compare prices without using local wages?
digi_owl 9y ago
Housing will always be nasty. Because everyone wants/needs it, and there is only so much land to build on (land that may or may not be needed for other things, like growing food). Then you toss banks on top and things really spiral out of control.
- cylinder 9y ago
  People are going to be in for a shock when it becomes normal to spend 70% of your gross income on housing (ownership). The amount of things people value these days other than living in an "important" city with jobs is declining. House in a nice neighborhood with good schools, near transportation, cell phone, broadband, Netflix account, food, healthcare. Everything else is "disposable," pun intended.
  - lukeschlather 9y ago
    It would be interesting to look at land value vs. labor requirements to build an additional floor. In the absence of regulations limiting building height, I think 70% is unlikely to become the norm. Just physically it seems likely that you could add 1000 square feet on top of a building for something that works out to less than 10 years worth of full-time labor. Assuming you amortize that over a 30 year mortgage, that's well under 50%. I could see a future in which land use regulations drive up the cost of housing to 70% of income. Also a future in which people work half the number of hours they do today and spend 70% of their income on housing, which is less of a nightmare scenario. There is a point where an additional floor becomes too expensive for the math to ever work out, but it seems to me the population of the Earth would have to more than triple for it to become as bad as you suggest.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    It's already common to spend around 50% after taxes. 70% is unlikely considering you still have to pay utilities, bills and food on top. That would leave nothing at the end of the month. P.S. You'll note that expenses can be a massive percentage of "lower" rents. For instance, a studio in a small city can be $500 a month, as much as the car expenses you need to go to work.
  - 9y ago
hkmurakami 9y ago
You make 1/2-1/3 as much as in big US cities. So that's the catch. It's all about arbitrage. Peogrammers can work remotely and make western wages in Tokyo for western companies though, and some friends have very high leverage this way.
lr4444lr 9y ago
But like your quote alludes to, the salient metric is internal purchasing power. If job salaries typically make $1000 a month out of reach, what does it matter to affordability unless you get something like remote work at the host country's pay rate?
user5994461 9y ago
Wow. Japan is crazy expensive. You'd get the same thing for around €500 in European cities, and it's so much that you already need your parents to help you. /s
bruxis 9y ago
So, this is a total anecdote, but I recently moved to Tokyo from SF, and while I don't think it's necessarily more expensive to live here, I wouldn't say it's a bargain by any measure. My rent is comparable to what I paid in USD in various areas of the SF peninsula. However, move-in costs were outrageous. I have a pet, so that increases it some, but everything here for rent is a multiplier, ie.: - I had to put 3x monthly rent down up front for security deposits (due to pet, average is 2 months) - Pay the first two months rent up front - Pay the real estate agency that helps you find an apartment (pretty much required) one month rent - Pay a "guarantor" company half a month's rent for some kind of renter's insurance I guess I'm lucky that I didn't have to pay "key money" for this apartment, which is effectively a bribe to the owner that you'll never see back. I also won't ever see my real estate fee or guarantor money again, and it's common to lose at least 1 month deposit due to "move out cleaning fees" (regardless if you keep the place spotless). If you know prices in the bay area, paying 6.5X that rent up front is pretty painful, and not being able to recoup 2.5X your rent is also kind of rough. I'm lucky that my salary didn't shift too much (aside from currency exchange) when I moved here, but generally salaries are much lower across the board in Japan, even Tokyo. Food is similarly priced here as SF, depending on what you choose to eat. Some meals can be considered cheap (gyudon, ramen, etc) but you have to remember portion sizes tend to be different and meals don't typically include drinks here. It's also really nice that tipping is not part of Japanese culture, since I personally find it adds a lot to the total cost when you eat out a lot (like my fat ass). Now, to add a huge caveat to all this, you can live cheaper in Tokyo if you choose to. When I moved here, I chose to keep my lifestyle roughly the same (though I didn't buy another car or motorcycle, so there's some savings). First, if you want to live more cheaply, don't bring a pet. You can also downgrade your lifestyle a fair bit which is an interesting difference from SF. In SF, even a small studio can go for a lot of $$$, but here, you can find small studios for $500-$1500USD relatively easily (whether they accept foreigners or not is a different issue). TL;DR: Can definitely be cheaper depending on what sacrifices you're willing to make. With no sacrifices, about the same as SF, except up front costs.
- hkmurakami 9y ago
  Ugh PTSD coming back regarding Shikikin and Reikin. Such BS.
codesuki 9y ago
Yes, you can eat cheap ramen. But do you want to eat cheap ramen every day? Most supermarkets in Tokyo are expensive. Want some Zucchini? Pay 200 yen for a tiny one. Want an apple? Pay up to 350 yen for one. Want a beer? Pay 300 yen for 0.3l. Restaurants? Want pizza? Pay 20$. Maybe that's normal in the US, I don't know but in my experience, a pizza is 6$ tops. Of course, there are things that are cheaper. If you live as Japanese as you can, you can save some money. But rent prices are very high for a normal Japanese worker. As some people here already said salaries are very low. Average income per age range[1]: 20s：348万円 (~34k) 30s：458万円 (~45k) 40s：586万円 (~58k) 50s：721万円 (~71k) My ~55m2 room costs about ~1800$ without electricity etc. Since the owner recently changed for new people the price went up to ~2000$ Given it's a modern 'mansion' (apartment) with nice extras, in a very good location it's still cheap (wondering why every day.) I heard SF is crazy expensive, but that's a different problem. Most people here, even in IT jobs get about 2000 dollar per month. So where can they live? They can live in some 30 years old very tiny apartment or live outside of Tokyo and drive in 1 hour or more every day. Even if you live 30 minutes away by train, most trains coming from affordable areas are packed and you have to queue up to get into one, which can extend the commute time to an hour or more[2]. If you want to go to work by car be ready to pay around 300$ per month for a parking space. Then, say you start a family. 55m2 won't cut it anymore. 80-100m2? Very few places. Very expensive. Most rooms here are between 20-35m2 made for singles. Anyway, this maybe sounded negative but I love this city. All things considered, it's awesome and comfortable to live here. [1] https://doda.jp/guide/heikin/2014/syokusyu/it/ https://doda.jp/guide/heikin/2014/syokusyu/it/ [2] Source: co-worker
- aikinai 9y ago
  None of the facts you listed are untrue, but did you notice how skewed your post is towards western-style living? None of the food you mentioned are everyday items for Japan (except beer, which is still cheap in Tokyo compared to western cities). And you definitely do not need 80–100m² to raise a family; most natives in central Tokyo raise their families in 55m² or less. You're right, it's crazy how low professional salaries are, but the city is so affordable with such a wide range of housing options that you can be a nail stylist and still live in the most central neighborhoods (granted, that stylist would probably have to move farther out to raise a family).

chrisseaton 9y ago

> Meals like ramen were $8.00 USD including tax and tip. I thought Japan was a non-tipping culture?

ue_ 9y ago
Me too, I was advised by my host family in 2014 and 2015 not to tip, either. Though we may have all been wrong :)
cgarrigue 9y ago
There is indeed not tip. But he was comparing with the prices in USA, where you need to include tipping.

cgarrigue 9y ago

It's only cheap if you come to Japan for holidays, or if you're an expat detached by your company to Japan. If you're living in the country, receiving the same salary as any Japanese person, Tokyo is an expensive city. And I'm not even talking about language teachers, who cannot really live in Tokyo or all the Japanese people who are part-timers Everywhere in the world salaries, rents and prices go hand in hand. Unless you're living on one side of a border and working on the other side (which is possible in EU) which allow you to game the system, rents and prices are based on supply and demand. Don't take it personally, but it does not make much sense to compare what you would get with a salary from one country while living in another country.

rtpg 9y ago
Yeah salaries are pretty low in Tokyo for a lot of jobs, if you're on the lower end of the skill hierarchy you're going to be in pain. But ... it's not like low-skilled workers in SF are getting paid much either. The average HN reader might be in a better negotiating position w.r.t. salaries in Tokyo Some things to consider about Tokyo: - No need for a car, insurance that comes with - Your company will (in almost all cases) be paying for your daily transportation by car - If you're willing to suffer in the morning with travel/take a bus to the train station, you have a range of prices for renting - There are a lot of people living on low salaries, so there are a lot of services on the low end. 100 yen shops with high quality stuff, all things considered. For 60,000 yen/month you can get 20m2 studio appartments (25-year-old buildings) within 15 minutes of stations like Nippori or Otsuka. If you follow the "1/3rd of salary" rule, it's reasonable if you're making a bit over minimum wage (not sure what the going rate for English teachers are)
- autokad 9y ago
  that contrasts with the reality that the average commute time in tokyo is 66 minutes (2011). I suspect the median is probably longer then that. SF is cherry picked, the most expensive place in the US. I live in Philadelphia and the commute time and cost is substantially lower. NYC would be the most appropriate comparison, and they get to work with nearly 20 minutes less commute. I bring up commute because many people have long commutes because they simply cant afford to live closer.
  - candiodari 9y ago
    Ah no worries. Give SF 30 years of declining revenue for all it's industries (like Japan), with several financial disasters during that time, and SF will not be expensive anymore either. Living within 66 minutes commute to SF will be positively easy.
    - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
      Great! I can't wait for SF to become cheap enough so I can move there. ...

duality 9y ago

On a recent trip to Tokyo I was under the same impression about the low rents until I noticed that many apartments are a single room roughly 200-300 square feet in size.

ekianjo 9y ago

> Meals like ramen were $8.00 USD including tax and tip There is no tip in Japan. And 8 USD for Ramen is super expensive, in Kansai you can get ramen for 5 USD or even less. Ramen should not cost that much anyway, it's super fast to make and ingredients are super cheap too.

dilemma 9y ago
800 yen for ramen is standard and has been for years.
- EliRivers 9y ago
  You must be going to the fancy places. Yoshinoya's a lot cheaper, and that's for a beef bowl rather than just ramen.
- chrischen 9y ago
  The 1-michelin star ramen place is 1500 yen all in.
  - 6t6t6t6 9y ago
    There's a 1-michelin star ramen next to my house that serves ramen for 800 yen. http://gm.gnavi.co.jp/shop/0117018901/ http://gm.gnavi.co.jp/shop/0117018901/
    - merb 9y ago
      damn that is cheap. consider their a la carte ranges from 700-1000. I live in germany near freiburg and all michelin star rated restaurants here start at like ~3200 yen per meal. (well there is prolly an exception an japanese restaurant in freiburg which serves from 600-~3200 yen per meal)
    - qarioz 9y ago
      It's not Michelin but Bib Gourmand
- 9y ago

branchless 9y ago

This doesn't make any sense. Why would you compare prices without using local wages?

digi_owl 9y ago

Housing will always be nasty. Because everyone wants/needs it, and there is only so much land to build on (land that may or may not be needed for other things, like growing food). Then you toss banks on top and things really spiral out of control.

cylinder 9y ago
People are going to be in for a shock when it becomes normal to spend 70% of your gross income on housing (ownership). The amount of things people value these days other than living in an "important" city with jobs is declining. House in a nice neighborhood with good schools, near transportation, cell phone, broadband, Netflix account, food, healthcare. Everything else is "disposable," pun intended.
- lukeschlather 9y ago
  It would be interesting to look at land value vs. labor requirements to build an additional floor. In the absence of regulations limiting building height, I think 70% is unlikely to become the norm. Just physically it seems likely that you could add 1000 square feet on top of a building for something that works out to less than 10 years worth of full-time labor. Assuming you amortize that over a 30 year mortgage, that's well under 50%. I could see a future in which land use regulations drive up the cost of housing to 70% of income. Also a future in which people work half the number of hours they do today and spend 70% of their income on housing, which is less of a nightmare scenario. There is a point where an additional floor becomes too expensive for the math to ever work out, but it seems to me the population of the Earth would have to more than triple for it to become as bad as you suggest.
- user5994461 9y ago
  It's already common to spend around 50% after taxes. 70% is unlikely considering you still have to pay utilities, bills and food on top. That would leave nothing at the end of the month. P.S. You'll note that expenses can be a massive percentage of "lower" rents. For instance, a studio in a small city can be $500 a month, as much as the car expenses you need to go to work.
- 9y ago

hkmurakami 9y ago

You make 1/2-1/3 as much as in big US cities. So that's the catch. It's all about arbitrage. Peogrammers can work remotely and make western wages in Tokyo for western companies though, and some friends have very high leverage this way.

lr4444lr 9y ago

But like your quote alludes to, the salient metric is internal purchasing power. If job salaries typically make $1000 a month out of reach, what does it matter to affordability unless you get something like remote work at the host country's pay rate?

user5994461 9y ago

Wow. Japan is crazy expensive. You'd get the same thing for around €500 in European cities, and it's so much that you already need your parents to help you. /s

bruxis 9y ago

So, this is a total anecdote, but I recently moved to Tokyo from SF, and while I don't think it's necessarily more expensive to live here, I wouldn't say it's a bargain by any measure. My rent is comparable to what I paid in USD in various areas of the SF peninsula. However, move-in costs were outrageous. I have a pet, so that increases it some, but everything here for rent is a multiplier, ie.: - I had to put 3x monthly rent down up front for security deposits (due to pet, average is 2 months) - Pay the first two months rent up front - Pay the real estate agency that helps you find an apartment (pretty much required) one month rent - Pay a "guarantor" company half a month's rent for some kind of renter's insurance I guess I'm lucky that I didn't have to pay "key money" for this apartment, which is effectively a bribe to the owner that you'll never see back. I also won't ever see my real estate fee or guarantor money again, and it's common to lose at least 1 month deposit due to "move out cleaning fees" (regardless if you keep the place spotless). If you know prices in the bay area, paying 6.5X that rent up front is pretty painful, and not being able to recoup 2.5X your rent is also kind of rough. I'm lucky that my salary didn't shift too much (aside from currency exchange) when I moved here, but generally salaries are much lower across the board in Japan, even Tokyo. Food is similarly priced here as SF, depending on what you choose to eat. Some meals can be considered cheap (gyudon, ramen, etc) but you have to remember portion sizes tend to be different and meals don't typically include drinks here. It's also really nice that tipping is not part of Japanese culture, since I personally find it adds a lot to the total cost when you eat out a lot (like my fat ass). Now, to add a huge caveat to all this, you can live cheaper in Tokyo if you choose to. When I moved here, I chose to keep my lifestyle roughly the same (though I didn't buy another car or motorcycle, so there's some savings). First, if you want to live more cheaply, don't bring a pet. You can also downgrade your lifestyle a fair bit which is an interesting difference from SF. In SF, even a small studio can go for a lot of $$$, but here, you can find small studios for $500-$1500USD relatively easily (whether they accept foreigners or not is a different issue). TL;DR: Can definitely be cheaper depending on what sacrifices you're willing to make. With no sacrifices, about the same as SF, except up front costs.

hkmurakami 9y ago
Ugh PTSD coming back regarding Shikikin and Reikin. Such BS.

codesuki 9y ago

Yes, you can eat cheap ramen. But do you want to eat cheap ramen every day? Most supermarkets in Tokyo are expensive. Want some Zucchini? Pay 200 yen for a tiny one. Want an apple? Pay up to 350 yen for one. Want a beer? Pay 300 yen for 0.3l. Restaurants? Want pizza? Pay 20$. Maybe that's normal in the US, I don't know but in my experience, a pizza is 6$ tops. Of course, there are things that are cheaper. If you live as Japanese as you can, you can save some money. But rent prices are very high for a normal Japanese worker. As some people here already said salaries are very low. Average income per age range[1]: 20s：348万円 (~34k) 30s：458万円 (~45k) 40s：586万円 (~58k) 50s：721万円 (~71k) My ~55m2 room costs about ~1800$ without electricity etc. Since the owner recently changed for new people the price went up to ~2000$ Given it's a modern 'mansion' (apartment) with nice extras, in a very good location it's still cheap (wondering why every day.) I heard SF is crazy expensive, but that's a different problem. Most people here, even in IT jobs get about 2000 dollar per month. So where can they live? They can live in some 30 years old very tiny apartment or live outside of Tokyo and drive in 1 hour or more every day. Even if you live 30 minutes away by train, most trains coming from affordable areas are packed and you have to queue up to get into one, which can extend the commute time to an hour or more[2]. If you want to go to work by car be ready to pay around 300$ per month for a parking space. Then, say you start a family. 55m2 won't cut it anymore. 80-100m2? Very few places. Very expensive. Most rooms here are between 20-35m2 made for singles. Anyway, this maybe sounded negative but I love this city. All things considered, it's awesome and comfortable to live here. [1] https://doda.jp/guide/heikin/2014/syokusyu/it/ https://doda.jp/guide/heikin/2014/syokusyu/it/ [2] Source: co-worker

aikinai 9y ago
None of the facts you listed are untrue, but did you notice how skewed your post is towards western-style living? None of the food you mentioned are everyday items for Japan (except beer, which is still cheap in Tokyo compared to western cities). And you definitely do not need 80–100m² to raise a family; most natives in central Tokyo raise their families in 55m² or less. You're right, it's crazy how low professional salaries are, but the city is so affordable with such a wide range of housing options that you can be a nail stylist and still live in the most central neighborhoods (granted, that stylist would probably have to move farther out to raise a family).