What a lot of these articles are missing is the additional building and maintenance costs. Sure a building can be made to last a lot more than 30 years, provid

What a lot of these articles are missing is the additional building and maintenance costs. Sure a building can be made to last a lot more than 30 years, provided you plan for it upfront with additional materials and architecture costs, and execute regular maintenance including on plumbing and potentially windows/door framing, which also have significant costs. All in all, considering Japan’s building constraints, the total budget for the house lasting 100 years will cost more than a standard house you scrap down and rebuild every 30 years. Basically it’s the ship of Theseus’ paradigm: do you rebuilt a house piece by piece over time, or do full reboots at specific moments. An illustration of this issue when looking at long term ownership of older houses: https://cheaphousesjapan.com/buying-a-house-in-japan-advice/ https://cheaphousesjapan.com/buying-a-house-in-japan-advice/ > So why did I buy a newer house? > I realized that an older, traditional house would be much more work and also more expensive and time consuming to maintain.