http://freakonomics.com/2014/02/26/why-are-japanese-homes-di...
And in Japan, earthquake resistance codes change about every 10-20 years, meaning a 35yo house is measurably worse than a new one.
I definitely considered the age of the building when we picked our new apartment due to these concerns.
There are also good reasons to junk old cars but it would be pretty inefficient if it became a societal taboo to drive a car over five years old or to purchase a used model.
There used to be an Australian guy who went around buying and fixing undervalued houses in Japan. While out in his searches, he'd point out the many unoccupied houses.
As an aside, when is Japan going to reconsider how it calculates unemployment? As it is, their unemployment is like 3.7% yet many many younger people work for as temps, which is sort of counterintuitive for a very tight labor market.
because many of these temps younger folks are university students at the same time. In japan university is only very few hours of attendance every week, so it leaves them with tons of free time to get a side-job.
For comparison the US median home price is ~220k. But, the Median price in Fairfax VA which is 30 miles from DC is $510,000. Chantilly VA which is ~35 miles from DC is 400k.
Prices are high because we have an inflationary monetary policy around housing. Essentially all mortgages are nearly risk-free to the lender, and are essentially implicit federal obligations.
Structural inequality is dangerous. All it takes is a little insurrection and the "faith and credit" gets depleted.
Hopefully we improve the stage of things.
Per Wikipedia, New York city's land area is 790km^2. Tokyo's is 2187km^2. Tokyo Metro's population density is 6,224/km^2 (I picked the higher of the possible numbers for this). New York City's density is 10,431/km^2.
There's really no argument you can make that New York should be cheaper than Tokyo based on density alone. Tokyo's big secret is sprawl.
Further people commute to the city's center which is why they tend to have lower population density than parts of their surrounding area. Which is why https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guttenberg,_New_Jersey has twice NYC's population density even with shorter buildings.
Leaving Tokyo for Kyoto by train I kept seeing apartment buildings and houses for the first 50km or so.
For this price you get a shack in the far suburbs of Tokyo. Anything remotely close to the center goes to 100 million yen. And prices are going up before of the Olympic Bubble, too. It's completely crazy.
I find it strange that you would think that. I would expect accommodation prices to drop in the vast majority of areas. Obviously, I am biased the other way because of the places I know.
The economy outside of major cities is pretty bad and it's only getting worse.
P.S. There is also a matter of timespan. If you look at 20-30 years, everything is going up. If you look at 1-5 years, it's stable or going down.
I spent my entire life's savings to do this and it was the best decision I ever made. When and if I leave Tokyo, I will rent it out for side income. I can't overstate the peace of mind this gives me.
Not the case in Japan.
That belief in the market drives the direction.
Just fyi, if you only include Tokyo, price nearly doubles. It doesn't make the best comparison because Tokyo + 3 prefecture = 38 million people with over 5000 square miles.
However, that chart alone is very compelling because it shows something that you don't see anywhere else; declining housing price.
Is centralized and lax housing regulations the main reason for this? I don't think the author makes a strong argument, but it's certainly a contributing reason.