> The first thing to note is that in Japan, housing isn’t an investment. It’s a place to live. Fixing this can be a major obstacle in countries with inadequate

> The first thing to note is that in Japan, housing isn’t an investment. It’s a place to live. Fixing this can be a major obstacle in countries with inadequate pension systems. In countries where dependency on rising property values is the chief or sole form of retirement planing for vast numbers of people, fixing a broken housing market becomes dependent on fixing the retirement system. And when land values are consistently propped up by government to a greater degree than other investments, it moves people even more into land speculation as their retirement investment because of its artificial safety.