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> A culture that abhors second hand housing (so structures don't appreciate like land does). Housing that depreciates is no longer a sound investment That soun

> A culture that abhors second hand housing (so structures don't appreciate like land does). Housing that depreciates is no longer a sound investment That sounds tremendously wasteful. All housing will have to be built new now? > (d) Not very open to immigration at all, have a decreasing population. This is probably the biggest reason housing is depreciating in Japan, especially outside of Tokyo.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago
> That sounds tremendously wasteful. All housing will have to be built new now? Well ya. You don't build to have your home last for more than 30-40 years, which can save some materials. We should get better at recycling and renewing building material, maybe the Japanese counteract things that way?
- yokoprime 5y ago
  Is this satire, are you really advocating building houses with an expected life-span of 40 years? So if i buy a new house when im 30, i should expect to have to buy new if i live to be more than 70 and I havent moved. If we assume your idea of close to perfectly recyclable houses comes true, i think people would have to really dial down their expectations and standards. No more drywall, particle boards everywhere. Tiles.. forget it, kitchen counters made by reclaimed wood etc
  - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
    > Is this satire, are you really advocating building houses with an expected life-span of 40 years? I'm really not sure. On the one hand, I agree it is wasteful. On the other hand, I personally like living in a new home. > No more drywall, particle boards everywhere. Tiles.. forget it, kitchen counters made by reclaimed wood etc The average kitchen where I live is renovated every 10 years, so the drywall, much of the electrical and plumbing, the floor, tile backsplash, etc...is redone. Bathrooms are also on a 10 year schedule. You can let the reno slide, of course, or perhaps you can do a higher quality reno and hope it lasts longer than a decade. (I'm looking at a kitchen reno right now and my house was built in 2016...the builders just made too many mistakes, but $150k to redo the kitchen...ugh) In Japan, they don't do the reno every 10 years, they just rebuild the house every 30. How is that much different?
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I have never seen that in the US. Any significant remodels are on the order of decades. My house is 200 years old.
      - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
        https://www.usacabinetstore.com/how-often-should-you-remodel-your-kitchen/#:~:text=Practically%2C%20you%20don't%20undertake,every%2010%20to%2015%20years https://www.usacabinetstore.com/how-often-should-you-remodel....
      - bombcar 5y ago
        Median duration of home ownership is 13 years - only need them to do one remodel and we basically hit the proposed numbers. Being in a 200 year old house already puts you WAY into the far outliers - the median US house is 37 years old.
- jjav 5y ago
  > You don't build to have your home last for more than 30-40 years, which can save some materials. I'm very skeptical it would save any non-trivial amount in materials. What would you leave out? Housing in the USA is already very cheaply built, 2x4s and drywall and the cheapest hardware they builder can get. Such houses easily last over a 100 years barring some disaster. To build a house that crumbles to unlivable in 30 years, you'd have to intentionally design it to do that. Which sounds terrible from an environmental waste perspective.
  - bombcar 5y ago
    They “last” 100 years with pretty Constance maintenance - and the average house isn’t that old so the jury is still out on some of it. In many places tear down and rebuild is cheaper than remodeling, especially when energy costs are taken into account.
    - jjav 5y ago
      > They “last” 100 years with pretty Constance maintenance It's no surprise to anyone that a house needs some maintenance, that's a given. If someone lives in it and keeps up with basic maintenance, it'll last many generations. > the average house isn’t that old so the jury is still out on some of it I suspect the average house will never be that old, simply because a lot more houses are getting built all the time bringing down the average. But plenty of 100+ year old houses, even here in California where most construction is more recent. > In many places tear down and rebuild is cheaper than remodeling Remodeling is a whole different topic. Yes, remodeling a house to be much larger or much nicer (or both) can be very expensive. But on the topic of simply living in the same house in the same configuration as it was originally built, for 100+ years (multiple generations surely), there's no need to remodel. Only maintenance.
onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
> That sounds tremendously wasteful. All housing will have to be built new now? It is if you're building concrete houses common in much of the world. If you're building houses that are common houses in Japan, it's not nearly as bad. When you think of a house as something that not only you will live in - but also will be the vast majority of your net worth that you pass down to your children - then building houses the Western way makes more sense. When a house is just something you live in - you think of it more like renters do.

seanmcdirmid 5y ago

> That sounds tremendously wasteful. All housing will have to be built new now? Well ya. You don't build to have your home last for more than 30-40 years, which can save some materials. We should get better at recycling and renewing building material, maybe the Japanese counteract things that way?

yokoprime 5y ago
Is this satire, are you really advocating building houses with an expected life-span of 40 years? So if i buy a new house when im 30, i should expect to have to buy new if i live to be more than 70 and I havent moved. If we assume your idea of close to perfectly recyclable houses comes true, i think people would have to really dial down their expectations and standards. No more drywall, particle boards everywhere. Tiles.. forget it, kitchen counters made by reclaimed wood etc
- seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  > Is this satire, are you really advocating building houses with an expected life-span of 40 years? I'm really not sure. On the one hand, I agree it is wasteful. On the other hand, I personally like living in a new home. > No more drywall, particle boards everywhere. Tiles.. forget it, kitchen counters made by reclaimed wood etc The average kitchen where I live is renovated every 10 years, so the drywall, much of the electrical and plumbing, the floor, tile backsplash, etc...is redone. Bathrooms are also on a 10 year schedule. You can let the reno slide, of course, or perhaps you can do a higher quality reno and hope it lasts longer than a decade. (I'm looking at a kitchen reno right now and my house was built in 2016...the builders just made too many mistakes, but $150k to redo the kitchen...ugh) In Japan, they don't do the reno every 10 years, they just rebuild the house every 30. How is that much different?
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I have never seen that in the US. Any significant remodels are on the order of decades. My house is 200 years old.
    - seanmcdirmid 5y ago
      https://www.usacabinetstore.com/how-often-should-you-remodel-your-kitchen/#:~:text=Practically%2C%20you%20don't%20undertake,every%2010%20to%2015%20years https://www.usacabinetstore.com/how-often-should-you-remodel....
    - bombcar 5y ago
      Median duration of home ownership is 13 years - only need them to do one remodel and we basically hit the proposed numbers. Being in a 200 year old house already puts you WAY into the far outliers - the median US house is 37 years old.
jjav 5y ago
> You don't build to have your home last for more than 30-40 years, which can save some materials. I'm very skeptical it would save any non-trivial amount in materials. What would you leave out? Housing in the USA is already very cheaply built, 2x4s and drywall and the cheapest hardware they builder can get. Such houses easily last over a 100 years barring some disaster. To build a house that crumbles to unlivable in 30 years, you'd have to intentionally design it to do that. Which sounds terrible from an environmental waste perspective.
- bombcar 5y ago
  They “last” 100 years with pretty Constance maintenance - and the average house isn’t that old so the jury is still out on some of it. In many places tear down and rebuild is cheaper than remodeling, especially when energy costs are taken into account.
  - jjav 5y ago
    > They “last” 100 years with pretty Constance maintenance It's no surprise to anyone that a house needs some maintenance, that's a given. If someone lives in it and keeps up with basic maintenance, it'll last many generations. > the average house isn’t that old so the jury is still out on some of it I suspect the average house will never be that old, simply because a lot more houses are getting built all the time bringing down the average. But plenty of 100+ year old houses, even here in California where most construction is more recent. > In many places tear down and rebuild is cheaper than remodeling Remodeling is a whole different topic. Yes, remodeling a house to be much larger or much nicer (or both) can be very expensive. But on the topic of simply living in the same house in the same configuration as it was originally built, for 100+ years (multiple generations surely), there's no need to remodel. Only maintenance.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

> That sounds tremendously wasteful. All housing will have to be built new now? It is if you're building concrete houses common in much of the world. If you're building houses that are common houses in Japan, it's not nearly as bad. When you think of a house as something that not only you will live in - but also will be the vast majority of your net worth that you pass down to your children - then building houses the Western way makes more sense. When a house is just something you live in - you think of it more like renters do.