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An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

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Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#21

Post by api »

codesuki wrote: post #9

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…

I'll take it instantly for 850 a month. I'd likely still take it for 2000 a month.

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#22

Post by harimau777 »

jseliger wrote: post #13
codesuki wrote: post #9

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…

Sayonara sunlight, hello neighbor. This is the sort of thing that markets solve really well. If you want a dwelling unit with those properties, pay for it. If they're less important to you than cost, don't. If one is $300,000 and the other $600,000, it's very reasonable to choose affordability and go to a park.

The problem comes when you cannot afford to pay for it.

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#23

Post by dvasdekis »

claudeganon wrote: post #3

Zoning is important, but let’s also remember that single-family housing isn’t really a speculative investment vehicle in Japan like it is here. You can either have private equity buying up foreclosed homes and house flipping tv shows or housing being used as housing that most people can afford. America chooses the former, Japan, the latter.

Does america have progressive or flat land taxes? Progressive land taxes (higher % tax of land value if you own more of it) make intuitive sense for housing affordability, but I read the Wikipedia[1] and only understood that 'it depends'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Property_tax_in_the_United_Sta...

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#24

Post by mcguire »

SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #4

> The first thing to note is that in Japan, housing isn’t an investment. It’s a place to live. The country’s slow population growth means that increases in property values aren’t guaranteed I feel like this is a misleading way to put it. Japanese houses decrease in value, generally quite severely - the conventional wisdom is that after a few decades you might as well just tear it down and build a new one. So there's…

Ah, how the wheel of life turns. Back before the Lost Decades ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decade_(Japan) ), Japan was a completely different country.

"JAPAN'S 100-YEAR BANK LOANS (FORTUNE Magazine) By Susan Moffat May 21, 1990

"(FORTUNE Magazine) – The Japanese, famous for saving, are now loading their future generations with debt. Nippon Mortgage and Japan Housing Loan, two big home lenders, are offering 99- and 100-year multigeneration loans with interest rates from 8.9% to 9.9%. Borrowers put up their homes as collateral. Such deals represent sound fiscal planning for some families, especially the very wealthy living in Tokyo who, perversely, can almost not afford to inherit a house: Japan's graduated inheritance tax can take up to 70% of a family's assets, including its home. Under the 100-year loan plan, a second generation can move into a deceased parent's home and pay inheritance taxes on only a fraction of the house's value. Most Japanese, of course, don't have such problems. Their challenge is to find a house they can afford, especially if they want to live in Tokyo. The housing crunch there inspired Robinsons on the Sand, a 1989 hit movie that's now No. 8 on Japan's VCR rental list. It tells the story of a salaryman and his family, who are willing to do anything to escape the misery of their tiny rented apartment. The ''anything'' turns out to be living on constant display as a ''model family'' in a spacious model home while potential buyers tramp through. Jealous neighbors bully the children and make obscene phone calls. Before long, one of the two sons turns delinquent, the daughter is killing kittens, and the father ends up homeless in the street. Mom and the kids finally return to their old apartment, where they watch TV in the closet in blessed privacy. So much for that particular family's Japanese dream."

https://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archiv...

The 100-year Japanese residential mortgage: An examination

"A recent innovation in the Japanese real estate industry to promote home ownership is the creation of a 100-year mortgage term. The home, encumbered by the mortgage, becomes an ancestral property and is passed on from grandparent to grandchild in a multigenerational fashion. We analyze the implications of this innovative practice, contrast it with the conventional 30-year mortgage popular in Western nations and explore its unique benefits and limitations within the Japanese economic and cultural framework. Through the use of simulation, the conclusion is reached that the 100-year mortgage has failed to increase the affordability of homes. Instead, affluent homeowners are more likely to employ long-term mortgages as an estate-planning tool to reduce inheritance taxes."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/106195...

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#25

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

clairity wrote: post #15
codesuki wrote: post #9

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…

that house looks great for $850/mo, and a bmw out front to boot. where do i sign up (in LA)?

You can get a large house that gets a lot of sun and is somewhat walkable / bikeable in Compton for $350k. With 20% down and all taxes & fees & insurance included, that's close to $1700/mo. In San Bernardino, you can get stuff for $250k, which about $1200/mo. You can get trailers in Riverside for $150k, which is about $730/mo.

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#26

Post by uoylj »

harimau777 wrote: post #22
jseliger wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sayonara sunlight, hello neighbor. This is the sort of thing that markets solve really well. If you want a dwelling unit with those properties, pay for it. If they're less important to you than cost, don't. If one is $300,000 and the other $600,000, it's very reasonable to choose affordability and go to a park.

The problem comes when you cannot afford to pay for it.

It's almost like people aren't entitled to everything they want in life simply because they exist.

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#27

Post by cultofmetatron »

codesuki wrote: post #9

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…

The apartment I paid 2k/month for in Oakland was garbage compared to that...

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#28

Post by vvanders »

mandelbrotwurst wrote: post #12
vidanay wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good percentage of new homes I've seen in the last 30 years here in America are barely a step above that in quality. Most of them aren't outright dangerous, but they certainly aren't top quality.

Houses in the U.S. are largely built by profit maximizing developers who know that the typical American homebuyer cares more about total square footage than essentially anything else about the house. Is it big? Does it have a nice facade? I'll take it! Houses are typically built exactly "to code", rarely above it.

Isn't that kinda the point of a uniform code of building? At least here the county code requires larger studs and windload due to the weather we get.

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#29

Post by twblalock »

gok wrote: post #8

This article is citing another article from the same source [1] "The typical Tokyo metro area starter home would be an apartment (around 750 square feet) or detached wooden house (around 970 square feet) located in the outer suburbs. According to Zoe Ward of Japan Property Central, the average Tokyo office worker has about a one-hour commute by train each morning." So part of the answer is that homes are tiny by Amer…

A lot of the people with hour-long commutes are not going long distances by American standards. They live in "Tokyo proper" (which is really more of a prefecture than a city) or the neighboring cities.

Re: An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month

#30

Post by SECProto »

gok wrote: post #8

This article is citing another article from the same source [1] "The typical Tokyo metro area starter home would be an apartment (around 750 square feet) or detached wooden house (around 970 square feet) located in the outer suburbs. According to Zoe Ward of Japan Property Central, the average Tokyo office worker has about a one-hour commute by train each morning." So part of the answer is that homes are tiny by Amer…

Even square footage isn't a perfect metric for cross-national comparison. For example, furniture in Japan (at places like Nitori) is often designed for smaller spaces. When I lived there, a $300 couch fit[1] perfectly in my living room, while it would've looked hilariously undersized in any North American house. I was more comfortable in that apartment, approx 480 sqft, than I was in a 1000 sqft apartment I had in North America

[1] たとえば https://www.nitori-net.jp/ec/product/1141031-1140061s/

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