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Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

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Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#111

Post by Konichivalue »

SECProto wrote: post #99
franciscop wrote: post #35

The housing space metrics seem very far off from my experience, looking at numbers it seems "Tokyo" means "Tokyo Metropolis", which includes the countryside, mountains, etc. So it's not really comparing the city. If we look at the numbers for Tokyo 23 wards[1] (what would traditionally be called "the city"), we can see they are virtually half than those from Paris or London: 16.5-19.7sqm/person is the range that fall…

> The housing space metrics seem very far off from my experience I have friend living in Tokyo paying Regarding size, I was far more comfortable living in a ~550sqft 1LDK in Japan than I ever was in 800sqft-1000sqft apartments in North America - everything is geared to living in tighter quarters (from furniture to fridge to food packaging) making it much more convenient than trying to fit a full size couch into a sma…

Yes, the numbers are a bit skewed by the fact that more people live alone in Tokyo than Paris or NYC, but it's definitely true that you get more square meters per $ in Tokyo. Also, it is true that people on Tokyo on average earn less than NYC, London and Paris, but they also spend a smaller percentage of their total income on housing, so housing is cheaper in PPP terms too. I'll dig out the exact numbers tomorrow if anyone is interested, but now I'm out in one of Tokyo's extremely cheap bar districts having skewers and beers for less than $10

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#112

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

logicalmonster wrote: post #85

Outside of either aggressive capitalist desire to continuously lower wages or some groups wanting to destroy Japanese culture, I've never understood why there was such an extreme panic by some about Japan's lower birth rates to the point that they urged mass immigration there. A stabilizing population on an island with limited space seems like a good thing. A little more space opens up for living and real-estate pric…

GDP can’t go up without strong reproduction and/or immigration. The economy stagnates and government debt becomes massive, which is what you see with Japan.

The scary thing is that this is something the USA and lots of other countries are headed towards as well.

https://dailyinfographic.com/government-debt-by-country

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#113

Post by mrep »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #112
logicalmonster wrote: post #85

Outside of either aggressive capitalist desire to continuously lower wages or some groups wanting to destroy Japanese culture, I've never understood why there was such an extreme panic by some about Japan's lower birth rates to the point that they urged mass immigration there. A stabilizing population on an island with limited space seems like a good thing. A little more space opens up for living and real-estate pric…

GDP can’t go up without strong reproduction and/or immigration. The economy stagnates and government debt becomes massive, which is what you see with Japan. The scary thing is that this is something the USA and lots of other countries are headed towards as well. https://dailyinfographic.com/government-debt-by-country

GDP can grow with a stable population if your Real gross domestic product per capita is growing which it has been for the USA [0]. Japans has barely grown for the past 30 years which is their big problem [1].

[0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA

[1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDJPN

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#114

Post by spoonjim »

SECProto wrote: post #99
franciscop wrote: post #35

The housing space metrics seem very far off from my experience, looking at numbers it seems "Tokyo" means "Tokyo Metropolis", which includes the countryside, mountains, etc. So it's not really comparing the city. If we look at the numbers for Tokyo 23 wards[1] (what would traditionally be called "the city"), we can see they are virtually half than those from Paris or London: 16.5-19.7sqm/person is the range that fall…

> The housing space metrics seem very far off from my experience I have friend living in Tokyo paying Regarding size, I was far more comfortable living in a ~550sqft 1LDK in Japan than I ever was in 800sqft-1000sqft apartments in North America - everything is geared to living in tighter quarters (from furniture to fridge to food packaging) making it much more convenient than trying to fit a full size couch into a sma…

I lived in 250sqft with a shared bathroom in NYC for 2 years and loved it. Loved in 800 sqft in suburban America for 4 months and couldn’t handle it. In a big city with affordable Third Spaces you can simply live outside of your apartment.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#115

Post by ajmurmann »

dcolkitt wrote: post #74

Should also be noted that Tokyo is one of the few major metropolises in the world where the price of housing has not meaningfully increased in real terms since 2000[1]. The Japanese constitution drastically limits zoning, building and land use restrictions. As a result the city of Tokyo builds more new housing than all of California or England.[2] (And no, this isn't because of Japan's demographics. While Japan as a…

Good point. One small issues: I think your first sentence is missing a negative or you want to change "increased" to "decreased"

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#116

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

mrep wrote: post #113
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GDP can’t go up without strong reproduction and/or immigration. The economy stagnates and government debt becomes massive, which is what you see with Japan. The scary thing is that this is something the USA and lots of other countries are headed towards as well. https://dailyinfographic.com/government-debt-by-country

GDP can grow with a stable population if your Real gross domestic product per capita is growing which it has been for the USA [0]. Japans has barely grown for the past 30 years which is their big problem [1]. [0]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/A939RX0Q048SBEA [1]: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDJPN

What do you think the cause is for the differences? I strongly feel that a lot of that latter “strength” for the USA chart after 2009 was made up of money printing.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/M2SL

https://inflationchart.com/gdp-in-m3

I guess we will see if USA can continue up only. I have my doubts. Fertility rate needs to be 2.1 to remain stable and we dipped below 2.0 around 2010 and are at 1.64 now (Japan is 1.34). The previous US administration clown show also drastically cut immigration.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/06/global-decline-of-fer...

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#117

Post by franciscop »

SECProto wrote: post #99
franciscop wrote: post #35

The housing space metrics seem very far off from my experience, looking at numbers it seems "Tokyo" means "Tokyo Metropolis", which includes the countryside, mountains, etc. So it's not really comparing the city. If we look at the numbers for Tokyo 23 wards[1] (what would traditionally be called "the city"), we can see they are virtually half than those from Paris or London: 16.5-19.7sqm/person is the range that fall…

> The housing space metrics seem very far off from my experience I have friend living in Tokyo paying Regarding size, I was far more comfortable living in a ~550sqft 1LDK in Japan than I ever was in 800sqft-1000sqft apartments in North America - everything is geared to living in tighter quarters (from furniture to fridge to food packaging) making it much more convenient than trying to fit a full size couch into a sma…

I never mentioned anything about prices though :)

550sqft (52sqm) for a single person is unheard of here. Look at the article I shared, unfortunately it cuts off at 30sqm, meaning ALL the houses of 30sqm or more make up 22% of the total. Assuming a normal distribution that peaks around 20sqm/person, you should've lived in the top 1-2% of Tokyo.

I feel like Paris' 20 Arrondissements is too small, comparable to Zone 1 of London and "Yamanote area" in Tokyo, while New York 5 boroughs is a lot bigger and more comparable with 23 Wards. But anyway let's go with it, since at least it's much better than comparing it with Tokyo Metropolitan. With Airbnb (which is usually a lot more expensive than long-term rental) I can find a bunch of places for under 1k USD:

https://imgur.com/a/FIODYlo

For London I could literally not find any, and for Tokyo also a bunch of places (you might notice that these are way further from the center than the area of Paris, but hey I said that was fair):

https://imgur.com/a/0XEvBcT

So it seems that London is particularly expensive, similar to Tokyo's Yamanote; while Paris 20 Arrondissements are at a similar place as Tokyo 23 wards.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#118

Post by wst_ »

franciscop wrote: post #35

The housing space metrics seem very far off from my experience, looking at numbers it seems "Tokyo" means "Tokyo Metropolis", which includes the countryside, mountains, etc. So it's not really comparing the city. If we look at the numbers for Tokyo 23 wards[1] (what would traditionally be called "the city"), we can see they are virtually half than those from Paris or London: 16.5-19.7sqm/person is the range that fall…

I'm sure you've researched this and sure some apartments in Tokyo are small. I'd like to touch upon the big-house comment, though. It may be that your Japanese friends say that simply because it is polite, and very common, thing to say when you visit someone's house for the first time.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#119

Post by franciscop »

GuB-42 wrote: post #61
franciscop wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The geography of the "cities" is very different though (look at the density of population maps provided), where "Tokyo Metropolitan" is one third pure mountains, then one third low-density living (think L.A.) and then one third what people normally thinks of the city of Tokyo, all of these in a sausage-like shape, while "Greater London" grows in a circle and so it's a circle-ish area. See this image with the labels,…

And even for the "green" area, a good part of it is not that dense. I mean, it is still packed, but most of it is made of small 2 story houses rather than large apartment complexes and high rise buildings. The real dense part that looks like the pictures of Tokyo you have most likely seen is around the Yamanote line, a train line that circles an area that is about 1/10 of the green area.

I see it everyday since I live here, no need for pics :)

But yeah I agree, one of the first things that surprised me is that you can walk for 20 mins (in the right direction) from any major train station and find yourself in a tiny 1-2 stories houses area.

Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think

#120

Post by amrocha »

franciscop wrote: post #117
SECProto wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The housing space metrics seem very far off from my experience I have friend living in Tokyo paying Regarding size, I was far more comfortable living in a ~550sqft 1LDK in Japan than I ever was in 800sqft-1000sqft apartments in North America - everything is geared to living in tighter quarters (from furniture to fridge to food packaging) making it much more convenient than trying to fit a full size couch into a sma…

I never mentioned anything about prices though :) 550sqft (52sqm) for a single person is unheard of here. Look at the article I shared, unfortunately it cuts off at 30sqm, meaning ALL the houses of 30sqm or more make up 22% of the total. Assuming a normal distribution that peaks around 20sqm/person, you should've lived in the top 1-2% of Tokyo. I feel like Paris' 20 Arrondissements is too small, comparable to Zone 1…

C'mon mate you can't be for real, you can't just look at Airbnb data and make any conclusions about rent from that. They literally target different audiences.
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