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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

#191

Post by camkego »

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…

If they are considering Tokyo Metropolis, they might be including Ogasawara, which is 1000km from downtown Tokyo.

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

#192

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #144
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…

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 be…

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by ricktdotorg »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #179
namdnay wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what do you mean by inefficient? japanese houses are remarkably energy-efficient for their climate. they are very breezy, which cuts down on AC use in the summer, and in winter you heat specific objects instead of the entire house

That really isn't true. A lot of older housing in Japan has really bad insulation, you are basically stuck with a kotatsu in the winter not by choice.

i took GP's comment of "heating specific objects" to mean an object like a kotatsu.

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

#195

Post by [deleted] »

rippercushions wrote: post #121
JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #109

Earlier 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.

[deleted]

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

#196

Post by Firmwarrior »

donw wrote: post #186
Firmwarrior wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Tokyo, you can work as a part time janitor and make enough to live in a 500 square foot place within a 30 minute commute by train

No, you can’t. 50sqm is a large apartment for a single person. Without checking, I’d guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 man per month. A part time janitor would gross half that.

That's weird then, since I know someone in that boat. You can easily get out into Setagaya-ku from Shinjuku with less than a 30 minute commute, and there are plenty of cheap places to live out there

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

#197

Post by lmm »

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…

AirBNB is extremely unpopular in Japan, it's not a good comparison for anything. Searching on Suumo I can see over 100,000 apartments over 50m^2 listed (which doesn't prove much of anything, but gives an idea).

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

#198

Post by lmm »

donw wrote: post #186
Firmwarrior wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Tokyo, you can work as a part time janitor and make enough to live in a 500 square foot place within a 30 minute commute by train

No, you can’t. 50sqm is a large apartment for a single person. Without checking, I’d guess somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 man per month. A part time janitor would gross half that.

I paid 13 man/month for a 47m^2 apartment, and that was in a pretty nice area (Mitaka) and without searching particularly hard.

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

#199

Post by lmm »

TedShiller wrote: post #189
diceduckmonk wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> locals about this topic Are the locals foreigners or Japanese? The set of housing options are different between the two. There's an implicit price premium and threshold on the units with landlords receptive to foreigners. The cheaper accommodations are not going to be available especially if tenant isn't fluent in the language. > All the places that "matter" with reasonably fast commute are very expensive and small…

Then why doesn't everyone just live in Tokyo? You just got your answer.

Everyone does just live in Tokyo. It's the most populous city in the world, the nicest place to live, and anyone with any sense moves here.

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

#200

Post by tzs »

runnerup wrote: post #167
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…

California: 1 new home per 354 citizens per year (confirmed using primary US government sources). Tokyo "city": 1 new home per 96 citizens per year (unconfirmed but reasonable). Tokyo "metro": 1 new home per 113 citizens per year (confirmed using primary Japanese government sources) I figured it would compare best if we translated this to "per capita" form. Eyeballing the FRED source[3], looks like California permits…

> California: 1 new home per 354 citizens per year (confirmed using primary US government sources).

> Tokyo "city": 1 new home per 96 citizens per year (unconfirmed but reasonable).

Are those using the same definition of new home?

According to comments on previous discussions here about housing in Japan, which a bit of Googling seems to corroborate, houses in Japan tend to depreciate with houses becoming worthless in 20 to 30 years. When the owner moves out the new owner often demolishes the old house and builds a new one on the lot.

That's much less common in the US.

To compare to new homes in the US you'd probably not want to count new houses in Japan that are replacements for a recently demolished 20 to 30 year old houses. You'd only want to count new houses that increase the available housing.

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