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> But in reality, depreciating real estate is one of Japan’s biggest strengths. Because Japanese people don’t use their houses as their nest eggs, as they do in
by warning26 4y ago
> But in reality, depreciating real estate is one of Japan’s biggest strengths. Because Japanese people don’t use their houses as their nest eggs, as they do in much of the West, there is not nearly as much NIMBYism in Japan — people don’t fight tooth and nail to prevent any local development that they worry might reduce their property values, because their property values are going to zero anyway.
It makes me wonder if other countries could adopt a tax policy like Japan, to encourage property values to depreciate. Would it finally kill NIMBYism once and for all, if people stopped treating houses as an investment and started to treat them as actual places to live?
- Barrin92 4y agoThe real issue isn't the tax policy. The tolerance for depreciation of housing prices is grounded in the fact that housing is not bootleg social security. Both the Japanese state and companies take care of their people, so housing is not seen as an anti-poverty insurance. If you want that kind of model you'll have to create the conditions for it first which means getting rid of the homesteading mentality.
- Tiktaalik 4y agoThe property values may go to zero, but the land values only appreciate. As land values increase and dominate the equation the house value might as well be zero anyway as it approaches irrelevancy. (As an aside I've heard mixed things on this, with some saying that this notion of houses depreciating severely is no longer the case...) I'd really really love someone with real, real deep knowledge of the Japanese housing market (eg. a banker, real estate agent or mortgage broker) to weigh in and go through everything in detail because it feels like all we usually get are breezy generalizations with such low detail that I only have more questions after reading.