111–120 of 121 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And? Go somewhere cheaper?
Often that's not a realistic option due to factors such as where family lives, access to minority cultural/religious institutions, access to good jobs, or access to cultural opportunities.
In the US, say at a 3.5% and 30 year loan, your monthly payment would be closer to $1,350. Add property taxes and insurance, and you are probably closer to $1,500.
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But the whole point of the headline is to try and convince the reader that Tokyo housing prices are low relative to the reader's expectation. If the small housing price example is congruent with the size of the example house, there's no story.
I'd contend it's fair to adjust for the country's typical expectations. Just like you couldn't simply expect the same size of house in Hong Kong as you might in Europe.
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> despite being substantially smaller in population than countries with economies of comparable size Which countries would that be? There are very few with economies of comparable size. The next above Japan is nearly three times larger (China). Besides, it's super easy to avoid that GDP / population confusion by looking at GDP per capita. The US GDP per capita figure ($65,111) for 2019 was 59% higher than Japan ($40,…
Yes, China and the US, which are both substantially larger in population. Japan also outperforms most countries that outsize it in terms of population. >Besides, it's super easy to avoid that GDP / population confusion by looking at GDP per capita. Not so much. A high GDP per capita is a poor measure of the average person's economic wellbeing on its own. Looking at it within the context of measures of economic inequa…
Highpoints:
2018: 63179
2007: 60985
1999: 61576
1989: 56678
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N
P.S. GDP in constant dollars since 1985: Japan, US, EU, and the OECD countries.
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?end=2018...
I think this headline is misleading in 2 ways. 1. yes you might get a house at this price but it's either 1-2 hours out of the city center (which is fine, just saying Tokyo is large.) Or alternatively it's in bad neighborhoods. (bad is relative if you are from the US) 2. your house will most likely look like this: https://www.ii-ie2.net/dat/5ba1164d.jpg Sayonara sunlight, hello neighbor. here are listings: https://ww…
>Or alternatively it's in bad neighborhoods. (bad is relative if you are from the US) I've never been to Japan, but I imagine that a bad Japanese neighborhood is incredibly safe compared to a bad U.S. neighborhood. In a bad U.S. neighborhood one has to regularly take precautions in order to not be physically assaulted or even killed by other people. >your house will most likely look like this: https://www.ii-ie2.net/…
The cultural differences make this comparison less meaningful than you’d expect. In Japan you absolutely never have friends over to your house or apartment. Everyone meets at bars or restaurants. Similar to nyc, many apartments in Tokyo are a few hundred square feet and literally only serve as a place to sleep and shower. That means houses aren’t such a major thing and so the Japanese invest way less time and energy…
> absolutely never have friends over to your house or apartment Absolute statements like that are just clearly not true. I've been to Japanese friends' apartments, even visited friends' family barbecue or wine tasting night. Less common doesn't mean it never happens.
Probably because most of my friends in Vancouver live in sharehouses or basement suites where they aren't allowed to have guests by their landlord, while my friends in Japan had small but respectable spaces that they had much more permissive ownership of.
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From my observational experience, and limited study on the issue, markets don't seem to be solving this optimally, at least in Melbourne, Australia. Overall, the market for apartments seems to be supply constrained. The main factors: 1. Government approval is required to build large apartment buildings. In general, this seems to lag behind demand. 2. Large buildings take a long time to build 3. There have been a numb…
If there is an oversupply of "low quality apartments" whatever that even means then surely people have flocked to the high quality apartments?
I have less experience in the high end of the market, as it's firmly out of my price range. Perhaps that alone is the answer? If while earning ~2x median pay, I don't consider staying somewhere more livable it would suggest prohibitively high prices. I'm unsure if the price is dictated more by the aforementioned undersupply or the higher quality. It probably reveals something about inequality in society.
I can't be certain the motivations of the developers choosing to build smaller apartments, the reasons I alluded to in the parent comment were an attempt at an educated guess. There is however an obvious ground truth that apartment sizes are shrinking (47m2 2014/44m2 2015 for 1 bedroom -10% in one year!) [1]
- [1] https://www.afr.com/property/melbourne-new-apartment-sizes-s...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, China and the US, which are both substantially larger in population. Japan also outperforms most countries that outsize it in terms of population. >Besides, it's super easy to avoid that GDP / population confusion by looking at GDP per capita. Not so much. A high GDP per capita is a poor measure of the average person's economic wellbeing on its own. Looking at it within the context of measures of economic inequa…
Real Median Household Income in the United States Highpoints: 2018: 63179 2007: 60985 1999: 61576 1989: 56678 https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEHOINUSA672N P.S. GDP in constant dollars since 1985: Japan, US, EU, and the OECD countries. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD?end=2018...
This is also concerning:
>Thus, use caution when comparing median incomes above $12,000 for people or $18,000 for families and households for different years
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The big issues that consistently affects real-estate around Tokyo is proximity to a station and the age of the building. The basic rule is that a condominium must be within 10 minutes walk from a station, and a free standing house up to 15 minutes walk. A house around 30 years old is worthless, and a house younger will be some fraction of its original purchase price. There are exceptions but this is a pretty good rul…
> A house around 30 years old is worthless Living in a city which city center was (re-) build between the 16th and 17th century, the 30 years till worthless puzzles me. Even the house I live in is over 100 years old and in excellent condition. Why do houses loose their value so rapidly in Tokyo?
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I agree that not everyone's entitled to waterfront views, but I think that in a functioning society everyone would be able to own a decent house (e.g. one that gets sunlight), within a reasonable commute of their work, in desirable part of the country (e.g. in a cosmopolitan city). The difficulty that I see is that housing prices in America are so high that it's unrealistic for moth people to create enough value to p…
I think, unfortunately, the definition of decent in this case is viewed as luxury. Most specifically the concept that everyone should be able to own a house within a reasonable commute of work in a desirable location. This cannot happen while also respecting the idea of properties as investments, the wealthy wanting to be able to purchase disproportionately large places in multiple desirable locations, and the idea t…
A house or a place to live? There's not enough physical land adjacent to places of business for each person who wants one to own a single-family home. They're an awfully inefficient use of space -- see the entire western half of San Francisco.
> This cannot happen while also respecting the idea of properties as investments...
Property can't be affordable and a good investment. Those two are mutually exclusive. An investment goes up relative to inflation. Affordability by definition goes down relative to inflation. You can't have something that goes up as it goes down.
> ...the wealthy wanting to be able to purchase disproportionately large places in multiple desirable locations...
You can, if you do something along the lines of what Singapore does with the HDB. Some 90% of Singaporeans live in government homes built by the HDB, and the remaining 10% is available to the wealthy to play.
> ...and the idea that so many people may desire to live in a city that the city cannot possibly take them all.
They city can absolutely take them all if you allow building up. There's no excuse for down-town San Francisco north of market limiting buildings to 6 stories when downtown Hong Kong has 118 story buildings.