Definitely, but I wanted to note a big thing that I often do not see mentioned in these kind of discussions. e.g. I'm looking at apartments in Tokyo, and for Ja

Definitely, but I wanted to note a big thing that I often do not see mentioned in these kind of discussions. e.g. I'm looking at apartments in Tokyo, and for Japanese people one of the biggest decision factor is the age due to earthquake fears. Heck, I'd say it's the main factor not to buy, a big % of the people just won't buy older than X years. This is the most "unthinkable" thing in my Spaniard brain, since older houses are not inherently worse (they have both bad things and good things). There's many other differences (and surprisingly, similarities) between Spain and Japan regarding buildings, e.g. the mixed areas are both very similar in both countries. But another surprising thing in (specifically) Tokyo is how strongly public transportation shapes Tokyo, go out in any train station and you have tall buildings, but walk 10-15 mins away and you have houses. In Spain, you have a very homogeneous height all across the city (fun fact: this was traditionally shaped by the cathedrals/churches).