A peculiarity of renting in Japan (not mentioned in the article): you often need to advance a substantial amount of money upon starting a lease. It varies but a rule of thumb is about 5 months of rent. Part of it is advanced rent, but some is non-recoverable (key money, brokerage fee, insurance, cleaning fee...). Contracts are often two years, and at the end of it you typically have a renewal fee as well, at around a month of rent.
Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
141–150 of 237 posts
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#142Earlier 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…
10万円 = 100,000 yen, which is about: USD 675.18 EURO 683.40 GBP 588.43 For anyone who is interested but too lazy to search
To be clear, in the last one year, the Japanese yen vs US dollar has declined by about 23%: 148 JPY/USD vs 114 JPY/USD. As a result, "dollarised" Tokyo real estate suddenly looks very cheap. For foreign investors / foreign captial, yes, this is true. For local residents / local investors, there is still almost zero inflation here. As a result, local real estate prices are mostly unaffected by USD/JPY FX rates.
When looking at real estate expenses from perspective of local residents, it is always best to look at local currency median income. If median income or real estate prices are unchanged relative to local currency median income, who cares(!). The rest is just an article in a financial newspaper!
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about NY or Paris, but the comparison against London seems fair enough. They seem to be using a Tokyo metropolitan area of about 2000 km^2, and comparing it with Greater London at 1572 km^2. And indeed, people throughout Greater London are entirely used to living in small, damp, shared boxes.
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,…
To complement your post: To be clear, no one with a deep understanding of Tokyo area considers anything outside the "23 ku's" as Tokyo. Really, Okutama, Tokyo (two hours west of world's busiest train station: Shinjuku) is comically rural -- literally, there are big mountains and small family farms that grow wasabi (delicious!). Yes, the province of Tokyo is enormous and includes lots of protected nature (and lovely hiking trails!), but when most people say "Tokyo" they mean the central 23 cities ("ku's"). If you want to get more specific, Tokyoites sometimes discriminiate between inside and outside the loop train line called Yamanote line. It is definitely the sense of urban and ex-urban in Tokyo.
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#144Should 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…
This is my random personal post: Last weekend, while riding my bicyle between Shinjuku station and Shinagawa station, I was stunned by the density of buildings on major roads. It felt like a one hour bicycle ride surounded by non-stop 10-story buildings... forever(!). My point: A 10-story building is not impressive, but 500 of them on the same road is incredible. The wall of concrete is hard to understand in Tokyo before you see it with your own eyes.
Dutchies/Belgies: Is anywhere similar where you live?
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#145Should 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…
Even though everyone wants to live in Tokyo, the same is true for hit real estate markets in other countries that it is being compared to. We aren’t comparing Tokyo to Duluth. Lack of building codes like must have central heat or must have bathroom also can bring housing prices down.
Hat tip for "Duluth". If anyone is not famaliar, it is north-central United States: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duluth,_Minnesota
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even though everyone wants to live in Tokyo, the same is true for hit real estate markets in other countries that it is being compared to. We aren’t comparing Tokyo to Duluth. Lack of building codes like must have central heat or must have bathroom also can bring housing prices down.
Tokyo's building codes do require bathrooms. Plus minimum sunshine for a room to count as a bedroom, along with shutters on all windows. What caught my eye about your comment is central heating. Japan in fact penalizes central heating. Not just not requiring it but going so far as to increase property taxes slightly. In Japan's case it is a desire to reduce energy intensity in a country dependent on energy imports.
You wrote: >
I belive it. Japan housing is so inefficient for a wealthly / highly industriaslied country: It is bizarre!
I tried to Google about this topic, but I did not find anything. Can you provide a hint about your source?
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#147The article makes a major mistake: it uses Tokyo Metropolis (Tokyo-to, basically "Tokyo State", area 2,194.07 km2) for comparisons, not central Tokyo (23-ku, aka the former Tokyo City, area 619 km2). So it's basically the same as saying houses in New York are much larger than those in Paris, because you're comparing all of New York State including housing in Buffalo etc with the 20 arrondissements of central Paris. >…
Agreed, this article is basing it's numbers off of this (linked) study: https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/airdrive-images/wp-conten... If you view page 6 and 7, you'll see why these numbers are largely irrelevant since the boundaries for all the "cities" except NYC (which is the 5 boroughs) include the large swathes of suburbs/exurbs around the city. A study looking at 23-wards vs Inner London vs City of Paris would…
New York "metro" is always tricky. All of New Jersey, southern Connecticut, Staten Island, the Bronx, outer Brooklyn, outer Queens: Who the hell cares. Yes, I will be down-voted for this comment! My point: Defining inner city NYC that is wealthy requires some care and consideration. All the interesting "real estate action" happens in a very small radius from midtown Manhattan.
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#148Why these people think I will subscribe to their mailing list before I even read the third sentence?
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except that housing an hour out of NYC seems to be more expensive than the housing the article talks about.
I don't know - an hour out of Penn Station takes you as far as places like Wyandanch on Long Island with the LIRR, or Stamford, CT with the MNR.
The theoretical travel time might be an hour, but we can't realistically compare the travel time variances between MetroNorth and Japanese trains.
Going to Stamford is maybe like 1 hour, with frequent catastrophic delays and problems, such that we can maybe model it as like 1.5hr +/- 20 minutes, whereas an hour on a Japanese train is like 1.01hr +/- 30 seconds.
Wildly different user experiences.
Re: Housing in Tokyo is cheaper and more spacious than people think
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you post examples of this ugliness? I’ve never been to Japan and am curious. I had never heard of this.
Pick a random spot in any suburb of Tokyo in Google Maps Street View and start exploring. Here's one: 亀戸中央通り商店街 https://maps.app.goo.gl/9yY4Ncb5oM3hXqLY6 It's not particularly hideous by Tokyo (or world) standards, it's just exactly what was described earlier, a random mishmash of houses and shops in various states of repair.
I don't think it's pretty, but I somewhat enjoy this sort of look.
It reminds me a bit of a compressed version of older, less affluent northeastern towns, where buildings are a mish mash of styles and designs. It's an overused term, but it gives a sense of character or that it's a discrete place with it's own history. This building is a good example.