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I live in Japan, prefab homes here are extremely common [1] - there's an Asahi Kasei prefab 3-story apartment building going up next door to where I live, and f

• ardy42 6y ago
  > I live in Japan, prefab homes here are extremely common [1] Could that have anything to do with how the Japanese dislike "old" homes, and tend to demolish an existing home when buying a lot in order to build a new one for the new owner?
  • presentation 6y ago
    I'd expect that's a big part of it! The particular article I linked to points out that (creating the need for a lot more houses to get built). Also there's a shortage of skilled craftsmen in part due to the aging population, coupled with a mature robotics industry. Other costs like permitting is way way cheaper and quicker in Japan than the USA (like other posters have mentioned, building in a city like SF can take decades and millions just to get past that hurdle, and people can stop your project by saying that they don't like how it looks - which is an invalid complaint here), so the overall cost of building a home shifts toward the actual cost of the home and land, not legal fees.