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This is cool. Would not know where to begin with gut renovation in Japan, though. And some of these look quite weathered. In US for example, you can typically

This is cool. Would not know where to begin with gut renovation in Japan, though. And some of these look quite weathered. In US for example, you can typically sub-contract parts of the renovation to get decent pricing. One team for the basement flooring. One for waterproofing / sump pump installation. And then perhaps install drywall / paint DIY. Of course this is aided by close availability to Home Depot, Lowes, and wide array of contractor grade materials and fixtures ;)

ComputerGuru 8y ago
Japan doesn't renovate. It's probably the only country in the world where "used homes" are considered something to be ashamed of. People buy homes only to knock them down and start over, even if they're only a year or two old. EDIT: You can read about it here: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/03/15/why-japanese-houses-have-such-limited-lifespans https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/03/15/w...
- NegativeLatency 8y ago
  Do you know a place where I can read more about this? Sounds very interesting.
  - presty 8y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...
  - TheGRS 8y ago
    IIRC this is why living in Tokyo is actually affordable compared to, say, New York City.
- rwmj 8y ago
  In general completely true. However there are now a small number of people doing up old minkas. In fact my friend has a nice side business buying up these old properties in the countryside for ridiculously small sums of money, restoring them and AirBnB-ing them to tourists.
  - moflome 8y ago
    While you care to share a link to this minka-renovation business? Or is this just in Niseko...
    - rwmj 8y ago
      I don't believe his business has any online presence since it's just him and his builder. He has an AirBnB listing which I'm sure you'll understand that I'm not going to reveal here.
- _iyig 8y ago
  How does that work for apartment buildings? Surely they don't casually demolish and rebuild massive structures made of reinforced concrete?
  - masklinn 8y ago
    No, apartment buildings don't get town down as much, although the japanese tendency of buildings having limited value means as urban centers "grow out" first suburbian plots get torn down and merged to build a low-rise (2~3 floors), then that might get squared away for a mid-rise (half dozen floors or so), and if the city center grows enough that would ultimately get replaced by a high-rise.
  - Xixi 8y ago
    If I remember correctly the rule of thumb is that a house is built to last 30 years, a normal building 60 years, and a high rise 90 years.
- onetimemanytime 8y ago
  Insane, every 22 years house goes to zero value. Probably adding relatively little money can extend the life to 40-50 or so. If I'm 30 and buy a house, makes no sense to need to tear it down when I'm 52.
  - masklinn 8y ago
    People don't tear down their own homes (though the home may get torn down for them by e.g. an earthquake), they tear down the house on the land they buy when they move, and get their own house built on it.
  - ska 8y ago
    How often to people these days plan to be in the same house they bought at 30, when they are 50? How many actually do?
    - ghaff 8y ago
      It’s hard to get at those numbers. But if you’re asking among people who buy a house at 30, it may be under 50 percent but it’s not rare. The older you get and the wealthier you get the less likely you are to move. 30 is starting to get out of “starter home” range for many. People move, upgrade, or downsize for lots of reasons but the scenario you give certainly isn’t rare.
    - alistairSH 8y ago
      FWIW, I bought my first house at 27, with a wife and child, and lived there for 13 years. Child grew up and moved out. Sold the single-family, bought a smaller TH, and assuming nothing major changes, we'll be here until we retire or beyond (I'm now 41, so ~25 years from now).
  - TheGRS 8y ago
    Its just thinking of your house as a depreciating asset instead of an appreciating one. Much like a car. I actually can't imagine wanting to live in the same house for more than 10 years.
- masklinn 8y ago
  > It's probably the only country in the world where "used homes" are considered something to be ashamed of. That's generally true though it depends on the specifics e.g. they would renovate and maintain things like temples, ryokan or major multi-generational homes. It's the "personal" homes which are considered disposable (pretty much anything you'd have in a suburbs in the US for instance).
  - ska 8y ago
    US is becoming more like that over time too, if you look at a lot of the new builds in subdivisions it's hard to imagine them lasting that long. I wonder if at some point the cultural attitude to "old houses" will become more like Japan's. [edit]: I find the downvotes curious - I know plenty of people living in ~120 year old houses, and plenty living in 5-15 year old new builds in subdivisions. None of us can really see the new ones being in service in another 110 years. So what I am curious about is - will this (apparent) fact change attitudes towards houses over time? It may just be selection bias. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things about newer builds that are improvements; longevity doesn't seem to be one of them. Of course the older houses have their own set of problems.
    - deleted 8y ago
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      - deleted 8y ago
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    - dgzl 8y ago
      God I hope not. We don't have respect for cleaning and recycling like the Japanese do.
    - yayana 8y ago
      The US might have been heading that way before the 1980s.. I think it would take a few decades of invariant quality for pre-1950 to not be a frequent requirement. (I would have supposed undamaged pre-war inventory established different tastes in the US, but that wouldn't explain Europe having the same demographic of new building skeptics as the US.)
- stcredzero 8y ago
  Japan doesn't renovate. It's probably the only country in the world where "used homes" are considered something to be ashamed of. I had heard that older Japanese were very 'allergic' to anything used or old, as it reminded them of the time during the war and post-war when everyone had to scrounge for everything. There was this thing in the 90's called '{some derogatory term}-shopping' where you'd dumpster dive in well off neighborhoods, and if you found a bit of 2 year old consumer electronics, you could assume it still worked.
  - masklinn 8y ago
    > I had heard that older Japanese were very 'allergic' to anything used or old That seems to be an exception pertaining to houses and especially single-family units. Objects/items seem to be restored as much as elsewhere if not more (see e.g. kintsugi). Although transience/impermanence is also part of japanese tradition / aesthetics.
    - stcredzero 8y ago
      That seems to be an exception pertaining to houses and especially single-family units. My mother is Korean, but FWIW she seems to have a similar stigma around 2nd hand clothing. With regards to dumpster diving for consumer electronics, I had only heard that theory 2nd hand, and I guess that especially applied to consumer electronics.
  - sparkzilla 8y ago
    Not exactly dumpster diving. The Japanese simply left their not-so old stereos and appliances on the street, where people like me were only to happy to give them a second life.
- tonyedgecombe 8y ago
  I think that is changing as standards have improved and houses are more able to cope with earthquakes.
- hrktb 8y ago
  > ashamed of It might be true for some people, but that’s far from the mainstream. same for destroying a 2yo house, that’s an outlyer, as the title says the line is at 22 years in average. The basic calculation is wether it will cost more to renovate a house or tear it down and build anew. When considering redoing all the plumbing, upgrading insulation, eventualy the basic frame of the house if it built on wood, to then redo the whole kitchen and bathroom because so much has ch aged in the meantime, just tearing it down is the most cost and effective approach. For anyone buying an appartmwnt in Japan, the budgeting of all of that is layed out in the maintenance fees planning, where some part of it will be set aside for rebuilding. Some people are renovating anyway, but think of it more like how people renovate 1920 area cars. The cost/benefit analysis is different.
13of40 8y ago
Slightly off topic, but I was in rural Portugal recently, and my impression was that about one in three buildings was in some state of ruin, from otherwise delightful little cottages with holes in their roofs and empty windows, to remains of ancient walls just clinging together by the sheer will of their graffiti. (This isn't to pick on Portugal either - I've seen it in several different parts of Europe.) For the less damaged ones, I don't really understand why it's not economical to throw a new roof on them to make them habitable. In the US, when a house rots it rots, because it's going to be made out of wood and gypsum and insulation that can't come back from exposure to the elements, but the buildings I was seeing were all stone. Is there some special failure mode that's harder to see in them, like black mold in the cracks or structural instability that makes them unrepairable, or is just lack of demand? A good example is this building: https://goo.gl/maps/7uzuvfrUQHD2 https://goo.gl/maps/7uzuvfrUQHD2 This is right next to the national palace in one of the wealthiest regions of the country, and instead of fixing it up and putting it on Air BnB as "The Cottage by the Palace" you can see from google that it's abandoned and the roof has slowly been caving in for the last ten years.
- kaybe 8y ago
  It might be more expensive to fix than a new house due to location, lots of specialized manual labour needed (you cannot use eg standard window because the holes in the walls are non-standard etc) and regulation (concerning building codes, appearances (especially in such a prime old-town location) and, if you're unlucky, monument protection), and probably some issues with moisture that you'll have to address, etc etc., and everything but the walls need to be redone. Plus then you sometimes have issues due to ownership. It might belong to somebody in an old-people's-home who basically forgot about it. It might be part of an inheritance and the heirs are in conflict about what to do for many years. It might belong to somebody in another city, who doesn't want the trouble of selling and not the expense of fixing it and renting it out. The owner might also have an emotional attachment, and lacking the money to fix it. It might have been in the family for generations... etc etc. It's surprising how many places are empty because the owners can't be bothered. It seems to me one of the better ways to find a way to live in German cities right now is to find an empty one, locate the owner and badger them into letting you rent it. Then again, there is a political culture of squatting empty places as well, especially if they are derelict... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausbesetzung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausbesetzung is a little better)

ComputerGuru 8y ago

Japan doesn't renovate. It's probably the only country in the world where "used homes" are considered something to be ashamed of. People buy homes only to knock them down and start over, even if they're only a year or two old. EDIT: You can read about it here: https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/03/15/why-japanese-houses-have-such-limited-lifespans https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/03/15/w...

NegativeLatency 8y ago
Do you know a place where I can read more about this? Sounds very interesting.
- presty 8y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusabl...
- TheGRS 8y ago
  IIRC this is why living in Tokyo is actually affordable compared to, say, New York City.
rwmj 8y ago
In general completely true. However there are now a small number of people doing up old minkas. In fact my friend has a nice side business buying up these old properties in the countryside for ridiculously small sums of money, restoring them and AirBnB-ing them to tourists.
- moflome 8y ago
  While you care to share a link to this minka-renovation business? Or is this just in Niseko...
  - rwmj 8y ago
    I don't believe his business has any online presence since it's just him and his builder. He has an AirBnB listing which I'm sure you'll understand that I'm not going to reveal here.
_iyig 8y ago
How does that work for apartment buildings? Surely they don't casually demolish and rebuild massive structures made of reinforced concrete?
- masklinn 8y ago
  No, apartment buildings don't get town down as much, although the japanese tendency of buildings having limited value means as urban centers "grow out" first suburbian plots get torn down and merged to build a low-rise (2~3 floors), then that might get squared away for a mid-rise (half dozen floors or so), and if the city center grows enough that would ultimately get replaced by a high-rise.
- Xixi 8y ago
  If I remember correctly the rule of thumb is that a house is built to last 30 years, a normal building 60 years, and a high rise 90 years.
onetimemanytime 8y ago
Insane, every 22 years house goes to zero value. Probably adding relatively little money can extend the life to 40-50 or so. If I'm 30 and buy a house, makes no sense to need to tear it down when I'm 52.
- masklinn 8y ago
  People don't tear down their own homes (though the home may get torn down for them by e.g. an earthquake), they tear down the house on the land they buy when they move, and get their own house built on it.
- ska 8y ago
  How often to people these days plan to be in the same house they bought at 30, when they are 50? How many actually do?
  - ghaff 8y ago
    It’s hard to get at those numbers. But if you’re asking among people who buy a house at 30, it may be under 50 percent but it’s not rare. The older you get and the wealthier you get the less likely you are to move. 30 is starting to get out of “starter home” range for many. People move, upgrade, or downsize for lots of reasons but the scenario you give certainly isn’t rare.
  - alistairSH 8y ago
    FWIW, I bought my first house at 27, with a wife and child, and lived there for 13 years. Child grew up and moved out. Sold the single-family, bought a smaller TH, and assuming nothing major changes, we'll be here until we retire or beyond (I'm now 41, so ~25 years from now).
- TheGRS 8y ago
  Its just thinking of your house as a depreciating asset instead of an appreciating one. Much like a car. I actually can't imagine wanting to live in the same house for more than 10 years.
masklinn 8y ago
> It's probably the only country in the world where "used homes" are considered something to be ashamed of. That's generally true though it depends on the specifics e.g. they would renovate and maintain things like temples, ryokan or major multi-generational homes. It's the "personal" homes which are considered disposable (pretty much anything you'd have in a suburbs in the US for instance).
- ska 8y ago
  US is becoming more like that over time too, if you look at a lot of the new builds in subdivisions it's hard to imagine them lasting that long. I wonder if at some point the cultural attitude to "old houses" will become more like Japan's. [edit]: I find the downvotes curious - I know plenty of people living in ~120 year old houses, and plenty living in 5-15 year old new builds in subdivisions. None of us can really see the new ones being in service in another 110 years. So what I am curious about is - will this (apparent) fact change attitudes towards houses over time? It may just be selection bias. Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of things about newer builds that are improvements; longevity doesn't seem to be one of them. Of course the older houses have their own set of problems.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - dgzl 8y ago
    God I hope not. We don't have respect for cleaning and recycling like the Japanese do.
  - yayana 8y ago
    The US might have been heading that way before the 1980s.. I think it would take a few decades of invariant quality for pre-1950 to not be a frequent requirement. (I would have supposed undamaged pre-war inventory established different tastes in the US, but that wouldn't explain Europe having the same demographic of new building skeptics as the US.)
stcredzero 8y ago
Japan doesn't renovate. It's probably the only country in the world where "used homes" are considered something to be ashamed of. I had heard that older Japanese were very 'allergic' to anything used or old, as it reminded them of the time during the war and post-war when everyone had to scrounge for everything. There was this thing in the 90's called '{some derogatory term}-shopping' where you'd dumpster dive in well off neighborhoods, and if you found a bit of 2 year old consumer electronics, you could assume it still worked.
- masklinn 8y ago
  > I had heard that older Japanese were very 'allergic' to anything used or old That seems to be an exception pertaining to houses and especially single-family units. Objects/items seem to be restored as much as elsewhere if not more (see e.g. kintsugi). Although transience/impermanence is also part of japanese tradition / aesthetics.
  - stcredzero 8y ago
    That seems to be an exception pertaining to houses and especially single-family units. My mother is Korean, but FWIW she seems to have a similar stigma around 2nd hand clothing. With regards to dumpster diving for consumer electronics, I had only heard that theory 2nd hand, and I guess that especially applied to consumer electronics.
- sparkzilla 8y ago
  Not exactly dumpster diving. The Japanese simply left their not-so old stereos and appliances on the street, where people like me were only to happy to give them a second life.
tonyedgecombe 8y ago
I think that is changing as standards have improved and houses are more able to cope with earthquakes.
hrktb 8y ago
> ashamed of It might be true for some people, but that’s far from the mainstream. same for destroying a 2yo house, that’s an outlyer, as the title says the line is at 22 years in average. The basic calculation is wether it will cost more to renovate a house or tear it down and build anew. When considering redoing all the plumbing, upgrading insulation, eventualy the basic frame of the house if it built on wood, to then redo the whole kitchen and bathroom because so much has ch aged in the meantime, just tearing it down is the most cost and effective approach. For anyone buying an appartmwnt in Japan, the budgeting of all of that is layed out in the maintenance fees planning, where some part of it will be set aside for rebuilding. Some people are renovating anyway, but think of it more like how people renovate 1920 area cars. The cost/benefit analysis is different.

13of40 8y ago

Slightly off topic, but I was in rural Portugal recently, and my impression was that about one in three buildings was in some state of ruin, from otherwise delightful little cottages with holes in their roofs and empty windows, to remains of ancient walls just clinging together by the sheer will of their graffiti. (This isn't to pick on Portugal either - I've seen it in several different parts of Europe.) For the less damaged ones, I don't really understand why it's not economical to throw a new roof on them to make them habitable. In the US, when a house rots it rots, because it's going to be made out of wood and gypsum and insulation that can't come back from exposure to the elements, but the buildings I was seeing were all stone. Is there some special failure mode that's harder to see in them, like black mold in the cracks or structural instability that makes them unrepairable, or is just lack of demand? A good example is this building: https://goo.gl/maps/7uzuvfrUQHD2 https://goo.gl/maps/7uzuvfrUQHD2 This is right next to the national palace in one of the wealthiest regions of the country, and instead of fixing it up and putting it on Air BnB as "The Cottage by the Palace" you can see from google that it's abandoned and the roof has slowly been caving in for the last ten years.

kaybe 8y ago
It might be more expensive to fix than a new house due to location, lots of specialized manual labour needed (you cannot use eg standard window because the holes in the walls are non-standard etc) and regulation (concerning building codes, appearances (especially in such a prime old-town location) and, if you're unlucky, monument protection), and probably some issues with moisture that you'll have to address, etc etc., and everything but the walls need to be redone. Plus then you sometimes have issues due to ownership. It might belong to somebody in an old-people's-home who basically forgot about it. It might be part of an inheritance and the heirs are in conflict about what to do for many years. It might belong to somebody in another city, who doesn't want the trouble of selling and not the expense of fixing it and renting it out. The owner might also have an emotional attachment, and lacking the money to fix it. It might have been in the family for generations... etc etc. It's surprising how many places are empty because the owners can't be bothered. It seems to me one of the better ways to find a way to live in German cities right now is to find an empty one, locate the owner and badger them into letting you rent it. Then again, there is a political culture of squatting empty places as well, especially if they are derelict... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squatting (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausbesetzung https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hausbesetzung is a little better)