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

Re:An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/m... by mandelbrotwurst on Sunday April 26, 2020 @07:15PM (#22991189)

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.

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Re:An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/m... by vvanders on Sunday April 26, 2020 @07:31PM (#22991278)

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.

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Re:An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/m... by kevin_thibedeau on Sunday April 26, 2020 @08:22PM (#22991653)

I've worked on homes built in the 90's with stupid stuff like flashing missing around the doors and windows. The ensuing water damage is not pretty. Pretty easy to sneak that past an inspector.

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Re:An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/m... by aidenn0 on Sunday April 26, 2020 @07:41PM (#22991350)

There's an argument to be made that if nearly all building just barely meet the legal requirements, then the legal requirements are too steep because we haven't found the bottom.

Compare with NHTSA car safety ratings. Many cars get 4 or 5 stars, but you can still build/buy a car that would be less safe.

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Re:An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/m... by vvanders on Sunday April 26, 2020 @09:02PM (#22991903)

Yeah but you also can't build a car without seatbelts/airbags/backup cameras.

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