4 ms·

Not in Japan they don’t. Housing, outside of central Tokyo, is a depreciating asset (and even sometimes is there). Japan also has fixed rate mortgages that are

Not in Japan they don’t. Housing, outside of central Tokyo, is a depreciating asset (and even sometimes is there). Japan also has fixed rate mortgages that are currently offered at a lower interest rate than in the US.

tonyarkles 3y ago
I'm not sure if this is still the case but for quite a while house prices in Japan seemed to be basically just the land value. It was expected that the first thing you'd do after buying a 20-30 year old house was to demolish it and build your own. And since population growth in Japan has flatlined and gone negative it's not a big surprise to me that they don't have a ton of demand for new land/housing.
- bugglebeetle 3y ago
  This is still mostly the case for single family homes. There is some uptick in resale of “used” homes built since the 2000s, as construction standards have improved dramatically since then, relative to prior years. For additional context, there is very lax enforcement of home building standards for anything single family, both to encourage new construction and because the general principle is it will be torn down in 20-30 years, so why bother. This is of course also leads to a bit of a vicious cycle (which some see as wasteful) where it’s safer to tear down and build new because who knows how whatever you’re buying was built.
  - pezezin 3y ago
    You are spot on. I have been living in Japan for the last 5 years, and the construction quality is absolutely abysmal here. Thermal and noise insulation is almost non-existant (very funny here in Aomori), and the overall layout of the cities and the houses is a complete mess. I read recently that the government passed a new law forcing higher construction quality standards, but let's see what happens...
- shiroiushi 3y ago
  >And since population growth in Japan has flatlined and gone negative it's not a big surprise to me that they don't have a ton of demand for new land/housing. This is a myth. There's tons of demand for housing in Tokyo, and other large cities. There's no demand in small, remote towns, and the population is moving from rural areas to the big cities, plus there's more immigration, so demand hasn't fallen.

tonyarkles 3y ago

I'm not sure if this is still the case but for quite a while house prices in Japan seemed to be basically just the land value. It was expected that the first thing you'd do after buying a 20-30 year old house was to demolish it and build your own. And since population growth in Japan has flatlined and gone negative it's not a big surprise to me that they don't have a ton of demand for new land/housing.

bugglebeetle 3y ago
This is still mostly the case for single family homes. There is some uptick in resale of “used” homes built since the 2000s, as construction standards have improved dramatically since then, relative to prior years. For additional context, there is very lax enforcement of home building standards for anything single family, both to encourage new construction and because the general principle is it will be torn down in 20-30 years, so why bother. This is of course also leads to a bit of a vicious cycle (which some see as wasteful) where it’s safer to tear down and build new because who knows how whatever you’re buying was built.
- pezezin 3y ago
  You are spot on. I have been living in Japan for the last 5 years, and the construction quality is absolutely abysmal here. Thermal and noise insulation is almost non-existant (very funny here in Aomori), and the overall layout of the cities and the houses is a complete mess. I read recently that the government passed a new law forcing higher construction quality standards, but let's see what happens...
shiroiushi 3y ago
>And since population growth in Japan has flatlined and gone negative it's not a big surprise to me that they don't have a ton of demand for new land/housing. This is a myth. There's tons of demand for housing in Tokyo, and other large cities. There's no demand in small, remote towns, and the population is moving from rural areas to the big cities, plus there's more immigration, so demand hasn't fallen.