4 ms·

I have friends in Tokyo renting 1 bedrooms in the city center for $500 ~ $900 month. Those buildings were not built as affordable housing. They became affordab

I have friends in Tokyo renting 1 bedrooms in the city center for $500 ~ $900 month. Those buildings were not built as affordable housing. They became affordable housing when other developers built newer, nicer buildings somewhere else in Tokyo. Older buildings had to lower prices to keep tenants coming. Unless there is a literally infinite supply of rich people, I don’t see how increasing supply cannot create more affordable housing. Likewise, land values are so high because the completion over developable land is so fierce. As with buildings, increasing the supply of developable land will also lower prices.

nradov 8y ago
It's counter intuitive but sometimes adding supply actually increases demand. Of course at some point you do run out of rich people, but there are a lot of rich people now so that can take a long, long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
- manfredo 8y ago
  This pertains to traffic, not housing market. This does not seem relevant to the dynamics of supply and demand for housing.
seanmcdirmid 8y ago
How big is a Tokyo 1 bedroom renting for $500/month? Are you sure it isn’t a < 50sqm micro-studio with shared bathrooms?
- jki275 8y ago
  50 square meters would be very large for a 1 bedroom in Tokyo. My 3 bedroom two hours outside Tokyo was 85m^2 and cost around 2500/month.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    Ya, they would be much smaller. Rents in Tokyo appear cheap, until you look at them on a square meter basis.
    - sgrove 8y ago
      This is an interesting contrast though - similarly in Paris, apartments can get much smaller than SF. The difference is, in SF, you simply don’t have the choice.
      - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
        A lot of that has to do with American building and rental codes.
    - jki275 8y ago
      Never tried to rent in Tokyo, but I can imagine the prices are astronomical in any decent areas.
      - dahdum 8y ago
        They really aren't, they are just small compared to western standards. You can get a two bedroom in Shinjuku for $1900/month, it's just going to be around 625 sqft. Transport in the Tokyo area is so good it's not really a big deal to live further out either. A big reason is that the Japanese land zoning approach is far more rational than the US approach. Much has been written about it[1]. 1. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-costs-tokyo https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-...
        jki275 8y ago
        That's astronomical for that amount of space.
- jaredklewis 8y ago
  Re the $500 per month friend; 1 kitchen/dining, bathroom, 1 separate bedroom, no living room. So nothing shared. Not sure the exact square meters, but it is very small. The secret to the cheap price is simple: the building was built in the 1970s (ancient by Tokyo standards). Edit: no need to take my word for it. A quick search on suumo.jp will show the abundance of Tokyo apartments available for under $900 (~¥100k). Tokyo housing is very affordable.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I’ve seen some pretty shabby housing in Japan. Some lacked indoor heating even (well, Japan did invent the kotatsu for a reason). I don’t think it is very comparable to housing in say Sam Francisco. They get affordability through various means that wouldn’t be allowed in the states.
    - jaredklewis 8y ago
      Japan has very high standards for buildings. Their building codes ensure structural integrity during earthquakes, prevent spread of fires, and ban usage of hazardous materials like asbestos. Japan also has environmental building codes that mandate levels of energy efficiency for new buildings. As in the US, they are still relatively new, but have been strengthening over time. If there really is a law in the US against building homes without central heating, then it is a rather idiotic one. I lived in a Japanese apartment without central heating. I bought a $75 space heater and was never cold. The grandparent pointed out that the housing options in SF are luxury condos and $50 tents. Maybe that's because the laws in SF basically prevent developers from building anything in between? "Can't be more than x tall, can't be in these areas, must have x amount of parking, with x kind of heating, x amount of green space, and at least x sq feet per unit, " and on and on. With all those zoning and building regulations, it doesn't really surprise me that the only kind of housing you can reasonably develop and make a profit on is luxury condos.
- badpun 8y ago
  > < 50sqm micro-studio Ah, the spoiled Americans. Here in Poland I live in a 1br appartment (two rooms, kitchen, bathroom) that's 37 sqm. Perfect for one person, livable for two or even two and a child.
  - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
    I lived in something that small in Switzerland. They even had immigrant families sharing that space. My only point was that we should compare apples to apples, not oranges.
Nomentatus 8y ago
In S.F and Vancouver, the city can't expand in most directions thanks to salt water. Therefore, the old buildings tend to be razed, in order to make room for a new buildings. This is a stark contrast to say, Houston or Calgary.
- nickff 8y ago
  Up until this year, Vancouver had one of the highest proportions of single-family-housing zoning (over 60%). Vancouver is one of the worst cases of restricted (low-density) development in North America. Vancouver's housing problems are political, not geographical.
  - Nomentatus 8y ago
    They're both, I have lived in Van. The politics aren't great there, but they were actually worse in prairie cities I've lived in. It's just that the geography prevented old buildings from being replaced so frequently in cities that were able to expand in every direction, which helped the poor quite inadvertently, yet considerably.
- jaredklewis 8y ago
  SF has plenty of room for growth without increasing the land area. NYC, for example, has population density of 10.4k/sq km versus SF's 6.2k/sq km. Paris has ~20k / sq km. Tokyo is hard to get a good stat for since Tokyo officially includes a handful of mostly unpopulated islands, but I think if the islands are excluded the density is around 8.5k/sq km.

nradov 8y ago

It's counter intuitive but sometimes adding supply actually increases demand. Of course at some point you do run out of rich people, but there are a lot of rich people now so that can take a long, long time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand

manfredo 8y ago
This pertains to traffic, not housing market. This does not seem relevant to the dynamics of supply and demand for housing.

seanmcdirmid 8y ago

How big is a Tokyo 1 bedroom renting for $500/month? Are you sure it isn’t a < 50sqm micro-studio with shared bathrooms?

jki275 8y ago
50 square meters would be very large for a 1 bedroom in Tokyo. My 3 bedroom two hours outside Tokyo was 85m^2 and cost around 2500/month.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  Ya, they would be much smaller. Rents in Tokyo appear cheap, until you look at them on a square meter basis.
  - sgrove 8y ago
    This is an interesting contrast though - similarly in Paris, apartments can get much smaller than SF. The difference is, in SF, you simply don’t have the choice.
    - seanmcdirmid 8y ago
      A lot of that has to do with American building and rental codes.
  - jki275 8y ago
    Never tried to rent in Tokyo, but I can imagine the prices are astronomical in any decent areas.
    - dahdum 8y ago
      They really aren't, they are just small compared to western standards. You can get a two bedroom in Shinjuku for $1900/month, it's just going to be around 625 sqft. Transport in the Tokyo area is so good it's not really a big deal to live further out either. A big reason is that the Japanese land zoning approach is far more rational than the US approach. Much has been written about it[1]. 1. https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-costs-tokyo https://www.vox.com/2016/8/8/12390048/san-francisco-housing-...
      - jki275 8y ago
        That's astronomical for that amount of space.
jaredklewis 8y ago
Re the $500 per month friend; 1 kitchen/dining, bathroom, 1 separate bedroom, no living room. So nothing shared. Not sure the exact square meters, but it is very small. The secret to the cheap price is simple: the building was built in the 1970s (ancient by Tokyo standards). Edit: no need to take my word for it. A quick search on suumo.jp will show the abundance of Tokyo apartments available for under $900 (~¥100k). Tokyo housing is very affordable.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I’ve seen some pretty shabby housing in Japan. Some lacked indoor heating even (well, Japan did invent the kotatsu for a reason). I don’t think it is very comparable to housing in say Sam Francisco. They get affordability through various means that wouldn’t be allowed in the states.
  - jaredklewis 8y ago
    Japan has very high standards for buildings. Their building codes ensure structural integrity during earthquakes, prevent spread of fires, and ban usage of hazardous materials like asbestos. Japan also has environmental building codes that mandate levels of energy efficiency for new buildings. As in the US, they are still relatively new, but have been strengthening over time. If there really is a law in the US against building homes without central heating, then it is a rather idiotic one. I lived in a Japanese apartment without central heating. I bought a $75 space heater and was never cold. The grandparent pointed out that the housing options in SF are luxury condos and $50 tents. Maybe that's because the laws in SF basically prevent developers from building anything in between? "Can't be more than x tall, can't be in these areas, must have x amount of parking, with x kind of heating, x amount of green space, and at least x sq feet per unit, " and on and on. With all those zoning and building regulations, it doesn't really surprise me that the only kind of housing you can reasonably develop and make a profit on is luxury condos.
badpun 8y ago
> < 50sqm micro-studio Ah, the spoiled Americans. Here in Poland I live in a 1br appartment (two rooms, kitchen, bathroom) that's 37 sqm. Perfect for one person, livable for two or even two and a child.
- seanmcdirmid 8y ago
  I lived in something that small in Switzerland. They even had immigrant families sharing that space. My only point was that we should compare apples to apples, not oranges.

Nomentatus 8y ago

In S.F and Vancouver, the city can't expand in most directions thanks to salt water. Therefore, the old buildings tend to be razed, in order to make room for a new buildings. This is a stark contrast to say, Houston or Calgary.

nickff 8y ago
Up until this year, Vancouver had one of the highest proportions of single-family-housing zoning (over 60%). Vancouver is one of the worst cases of restricted (low-density) development in North America. Vancouver's housing problems are political, not geographical.
- Nomentatus 8y ago
  They're both, I have lived in Van. The politics aren't great there, but they were actually worse in prairie cities I've lived in. It's just that the geography prevented old buildings from being replaced so frequently in cities that were able to expand in every direction, which helped the poor quite inadvertently, yet considerably.
jaredklewis 8y ago
SF has plenty of room for growth without increasing the land area. NYC, for example, has population density of 10.4k/sq km versus SF's 6.2k/sq km. Paris has ~20k / sq km. Tokyo is hard to get a good stat for since Tokyo officially includes a handful of mostly unpopulated islands, but I think if the islands are excluded the density is around 8.5k/sq km.