Expensive real estate is often overpriced for no good reason. However, cheap real estate is almost always underpriced for a very good reason.
Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
21–30 of 84 posts
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#22The person featured in the article has posted a lot of great videos on YouTube (one of them is embedded in the article). He’s very honest about the challenges, and it doesn’t look easy.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#23Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, 20x less renovation than a $4m house in Palo Alto needs.
> So, 20x less renovation than a $4m house in Palo Alto needs. While the comparison of renovation costs is interesting, it seems somewhat arbitrary to use Palo Alto as the sole point of comparison. After all, Palo Alto is widely known as one of the most expensive cities in the United States, so it’s possible that the cost of renovations there could be significantly higher than in other areas. It would be fascinating…
Yes, it would be interesting, because you'd expect materials to cost roughly the same wherever you are in the country (modulo shipping costs), and cost of labor to account for much of the city to city difference.
A former landlord of mine, whose house I was renting in Palo Alto at the time (2021), shared that they were planning to kick off a major renovation that would total around 800K$ all-in.
That's an absolutely stunning figure to renovate a 3bdrm home, considering I've also heard anecdotes from outside California, of completely stripping down a similar-sized home to the studs, redoing all plumbing / electricity / walls / flooring / high-end-everything in the kitchen... for under 250K$.
So, where's the extra half-million dollars going? The delta in renovation costs alone between these anecdotes represents 10 years of the average California constructor worker's salary [per the BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472061.htm).
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So, 20x less renovation than a $4m house in Palo Alto needs. While the comparison of renovation costs is interesting, it seems somewhat arbitrary to use Palo Alto as the sole point of comparison. After all, Palo Alto is widely known as one of the most expensive cities in the United States, so it’s possible that the cost of renovations there could be significantly higher than in other areas. It would be fascinating…
Yes, it would be interesting, because you'd expect materials to cost roughly the same wherever you are in the country (modulo shipping costs), and cost of labor to account for much of the city to city difference. A former landlord of mine, whose house I was renting in Palo Alto at the time (2021), shared that they were planning to kick off a major renovation that would total around 800K$ all-in. That's an absolutely…
This isn't unique to that region.
Construction costs in London are significantly higher than in the north of England.
I'd be surprised if this isn't common worldwide. Tradesmen are generally in high demand in these areas, it's not like McDonalds where you can just pay minimum wage + $5 and hope for the best.
And as the other poster says, bulk materials are, well, bulky. Timber is comparatively expensive in the UK because we don't have vast forests like the US.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#25We'd love to but the immigration policies are very unfriendly.
A while back I looked at how I would score on their "points based" immigration calculator thing.
It wasn't good at all.
I suspect they will have to have a strong rethink of their immigration policies in the next 10-20 years.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#26Let me save you from the momentary daydream and predictable disappointment after reading the clickbait article: > Mr. Thursfield and his Japanese-born wife, Chihiro > The couple have spent about $150,000 on renovations, and there’s more to do
Even with a Japanese wife, Japanese fluency, fondness for rural Japan, a career in remote work, and a flair for home renovation, I still have no interest in buying one of these houses. It’s a huge job to fix up most of these homes.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
> So, 20x less renovation than a $4m house in Palo Alto needs. While the comparison of renovation costs is interesting, it seems somewhat arbitrary to use Palo Alto as the sole point of comparison. After all, Palo Alto is widely known as one of the most expensive cities in the United States, so it’s possible that the cost of renovations there could be significantly higher than in other areas. It would be fascinating…
Yes, it would be interesting, because you'd expect materials to cost roughly the same wherever you are in the country (modulo shipping costs), and cost of labor to account for much of the city to city difference. A former landlord of mine, whose house I was renting in Palo Alto at the time (2021), shared that they were planning to kick off a major renovation that would total around 800K$ all-in. That's an absolutely…
Shipping costs are a massive deal in construction so you’re stuck with local materials and local workers. Which recursively means your also stuck with fairly local factory workers making those materials etc.
That said, the upper end of materials get crazy expensive anywhere. From basic linoleum floors in bathrooms, the next rung is tile and underfloor heating systems, and above that people are importing hand crafted marble from Italy etc. So each bathroom could have a 100$ toilet or a 15,000$ one etc.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#28Important to note that, unlike in many other countries, housing in Japan is a depreciating asset, like a car. Their value goes to zero over time. This is somewhat contrary to what many of us are accustomed to, where houses are appreciating (or at least stable) assets which maintain or grow in value.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#29Thats great, but isn't there a lot of red tape in moving to another country?
Depends where.
Japan? Enough red tape to mummify yourself.
Re: Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?
#30Expensive real estate is often overpriced for no good reason. However, cheap real estate is almost always underpriced for a very good reason.
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