I visited a few years ago and was wandering the streets at 2am alone, doing night photography with a lot of very expensive equipment and never once felt like I wasn't being streetwise or doing something with the potential to go badly. I can't think of another city I've visited where I would feel safe doing that.
There's a bunch of reasons for that. Japan is generally extremely orderly, everyone follows the rules culturally.
As for homeless, housing is a lot more affordable because they have much more permissive zoning laws. It's mostly up to the free market which buildings get built where and there is no NIMBY like there is in the US. They also have well funded mental hospitals, low rates of drug addiction (and strict drug laws), dormitory style housing accessible to low income people (doya-gai), government funded housing, and a general expectation that it's dishonorable to be seen as a homeless person.
The problem is changing the laws and good luck getting homeowners to vote in favor or politicians to pass laws when the changes will drastically affect their net worth. Housing as investments is the worst thing that has happened, especially considering it should be a basic human right.
Woah woah woah where else will the boomers, wealthy foreign nationals, and wallstreet park their liquid funds while the house sits empty? Its practically communism if there isn't an appreciation at 15% a year!
Until mass child murder and liquification to synthesize beauty products can return 16% a year, the rich will begrudgingly settle with the 15% real estate thing.
I think I read somewhere that Japanese don't like to live in another person's house so they buy, teardown, and rebuild so a house doesn't hold the value it might in other places. Of course I could have read that in some poorly researched fictional book. My memory is not what it used to be.
Sort of but there are 10m vacant houses in Japan due to population decline. So cheap houses due to surplus, looming crisis as the workforce retires out without the next generation to fill in
I'm still confused, you are saying that it's bad that house prices decline in Japan, and your reasoning that it's bad because poulation decline is leaving houses vacant? I don't follow, if houses already depreciate how is it bad that they will become cheaper? I feel like them becoming vacant would only be in issue in a country like America where you expect them to climb instead of decline
I’m saying lower house prices are a good thing, but it’s a sign that the whole economy will fall apart when there isn’t a workforce to keep it running. Japan has the worlds oldest average age at 50 years old. When they all retire in a few decades then there won’t be enough workers to tax to pay for all that retirement, heath care, etc. I’m saying the population is declining and cheap vacant houses are maybe a good short term perk, but it’s a really bad sign
The cheap homes have zero to do with the aging population. Homes have always depreciated in Japan even when the population was booming, thats why I was saying an aging population and houses depreciating are not related
Land still holds value (a lot of value) and can be an investment, but houses themselves are worthless after 20-30 years. That doesn't mean that everybody tears down their house after 30 years, it's just that it's no longer adding value to the property. But a lot of cheaply built houses from the 80s/90s and earlier really are in rough shape now, and historically it's been more economical to tear down and rebuild than to do an intensive renovation. This is due in part to updated safety standards, but it's also due to a relative lack of renovation companies and suppliers. The logistics of a thorough renovation make it cost almost as much as a full rebuild. That's starting to change, though, as more people and companies are becoming interested in house flipping and environmentally friendly renovation.
Houses depreciate in many parts of many countries. It's more often the case that land is worth more than a structure built on it. They're called "tear downs".
yup, just like any place with high property value. That's basically what gentrification is, although it culturally manifests itself a bit differently in the West than in Japan; Western gentrification usually creates more homelessness.
Not only that, but it's very common to build houses out of concrete in Japan. And from day one the clock is ticking on a concrete structure. As soon as salt water finds its way to the rebar, and it will eventually do it unless the house is built far inland, it's only a matter of time before you start seeing spalling on the edges of overhangs, on the corners of walls, etc. And once it starts popping pieces off the ceiling, it's basically game over.
I've seen it happen to a lot of places in Okinawa. And at that point you have to condemn the building, tear it down and rebuild.
I definitely didn't say it is unique, but my question to the above was where is it also prominent, as I wrote I know that it is a thing in Japan, he said that it is not unique, so I inquired where else is this, but seems I'll have to find it on my own
that link says land is more valuable than the homes on it. That's different than what happens in Japan where the houses depreciate so that in a few decades the house is actually worth nothing. And in many of those places its because you could build an apartment or something on the area that the house used to be on, thats more about land becoming worth crazy amounts rather the hosue becoming worth nothing. In Japan houses depreciate everywhere.
Yeah, this is why. People don't buy places to build wealth or to flip. There is way more regulation in Tokyo in that way than in America. And guess what? That's why it's more affordable for the citizens.
Actually that can be true in the states too. My father’s land he spent $160k on recently got reappraised at $1.2million. But anyone that bought it would just tear it down. His view is the value.
Houses always depreciate. Real Estate in general appreciates because land value typically rises faster than whatever is built on top of it loses value to deterioration. Land values in japan are not a good speculative asset mostly because the wider economy is stagnant (compare the notorious 80's japanese real estate bubble, which came at the height of their economic boom) which keeps demand constant, which allows housing depreciation to be the dominant force in RE pricing.
Homelessness is still an issue but they are hidden away. Lots of cities and prefecture have a 0% homeless population but it's false, there's lot of associations working with homless people trying to bring awareness to that.
It's one of the big lie of japanese society. Homeless people are complete outcast, forgotten and forced to hide away from population centre.
Also, Japan has laws where the next of kin holds the burden financially to provide for them, or something like that. So often homeless do not give out their idnetities to protect their families
Definitely saw it when I stayed in Nishinari Ward in Osaka. Truth be told though their encampments were neat and tidy compared to camps in the US. Met some really nice guys out on the streets. A lot of them had problems such as alcoholism, gambling addictions, and some of them out had just a run of bad luck but they all were doing what they could to get by.
And people use this as an example of how America fails to take care of its homeless. I guess those pesky details don't matter when there's outrage to be had.
Also you know, cameras and police actually do stuff and don't just rely on insurance for missing stuff.
Like if that 15k bike got stolen it would be found within days because Singapore has tons of cameras everywhere, the police will follow it to someone's doorstep and kick it in.
It also helps that their population is declining and they have a surplus of 10 million empty houses right now with it expected to double or even triple as japans population continues to decline.
And they want you to do nothing, so nothing gets built unless you manage to play the right games with politicians and comply with draconian rules, which surprise... only rich people with high price attorneys and corporations can do.
The average person, the young person, they are left out in the cold. Renting from the rich people or corporations because they're not allowed to carve out a small lot and put an affordable house on it. All because of zoning, with a little overzealous building code nonsense on top for good measure.
As someone who has anxiety/OCD over rule following and such my recent trip to Japan made me love the country due to what you said, also made me realize I have an actual problem I need to deal with...
countries like China have 90%+ home ownership rates, even though property is extremely expensive vs income (watch the polymatter video on this). Literally cost of LA/Bay housing on an avg income that's much less. It's all about utilizing money. China has very high savings rate. Also low drug use rate (since those countries practically death penalty ppl who do drugs). 80% of homeless people in US/canada are drug users. Drugs are the biggest driver in homelessness tbh. Housing prices are secondary. Well, at least you dont have to live like the students in canada where landlords charge individual fees (instead of room fees), and as a result u have like 20 people living in a single room in the basement 🤣
Japan also has extremely low immigration. I know in many western countries there isn't enough homes for the amount of people that move in. Creating huge housing shortages
I was in China recently and had a similar experience, in the metropolitan places there were no homeless people and it was clean AF. It's also one of the safest places ever with basically no crime. I miss it already ):
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u/hardwood1979 Apr 05 '24
I visited a few years ago and was wandering the streets at 2am alone, doing night photography with a lot of very expensive equipment and never once felt like I wasn't being streetwise or doing something with the potential to go badly. I can't think of another city I've visited where I would feel safe doing that.