In the conversation surrounding home buying in Japan, I often see it mentioned that homes tend to be demolished and rebuilt after 30-40 years or so. Do folks suspect that this will continue to be the case given the improvements in modern home construction? Will housing still depreciate at the same speed?
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It’s been improving for decades. And no, it’s not the lifetime of the building it’s the consumer preference. As long as borrowing money is essentially free here you won’t see any change in consumer preference in terms of tear down and rebuild.
The reason they are demolished in between 30 years is not because of lack of building technology.
Yes.
The quakes have a large impact on the integrity of the home. Being designed to move with the ground means they accumulate wear over the years.
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One thing people overlook is the temples and shrines are often completely rebuilt every 100 years or so.
House construction has improved generally, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any shoddy, corner cutting, penny pinching builders out there.
Also, unless you’re building somewhere in an inner city, or a suburb near a big city that has a rising population due to priced-out families moving there, you house will depreciate at the same speed no matter what the build quality. You just have to accept that in this country, the value pf property is just in the land.
I think it is a combination of not only the earthquake/fire rules, but also because it isn’t common for homes to be upgraded or maintained over their lifespan to modernize the interior, fixtures and aesthetics.
While hard to predict the future, unless there are major policy changes, the increased supply of empty homes over the next decade (~30%) will continue to put downward pressure on home resale prices. Tokyo area doesn’t suffer as much as its population influx is relatively positive (although effectively zero over the past few years).
I suspect there will be a gradual shift. It used to be the case that the earthquake construction rules became stricter every few decades and old buildings were no longer compliant and seen as dangerous; that’s less true now. Personally I bet cultural attitudes will gradually shift in line with that.
I work in construction and you’re out of your mind if you think modern construction is better. It’s absolutely dog shit. You’ve fallen for the propaganda by the construction companies. You probably believe in ghosts now too. And falling roof tiles during earthquake killing all the women and children.
There are shitty old houses, but the well built ones are incredibly well built. I just took a load of logs from an old house being demolished and the beams were so hard that my axe bounced off of them. Absolutely ZERO rot or anything wrong with the frame. The walls and flooring and everything can be updated far easier than demolishing and building a new house, and far better for the environment.
We’re taking old beams, 50+ cm in diameter being scrapped so that a Chinese cement and plastic shitbox can take its place. I hate it.
Every building in my neighborhood is like 80+ years old.
The thirty years thing is a preference, not a requirement.
And mostly in built up areas.
I was reading about it recently and the lifespan is shifting towards 60 years old. Quality improved, some people even buy “second hand” houses/apartments.
Japan, like anything else, is reluctant to change. Look at houses for sale in Germany and they are listed for yearly heating cost (kWh/m2).
Electricity in Japan is so expensive. You think they would want to cut them by 90%, which is what you’ll see with passive house.
Once that is adopted I think you’ll see less rebuilds.
As others have pointed out there’s a difference between having the technology and actually using it.
In no small part there’s also a huge cultural factor here too. There are cultural/religious hangups about living in a house where someone has died, the entire “it’s not clean” thing, and of course the desire for something new where “new” seems to trump “well built”.
It’s like cars in Japan. I see a bunch of perfectly well-running cars being shipped off overseas just because Japanese people want the “newest” model even when their car will still probably run just fine for another 10 years.
For a country where people say “mottainai!” so much there is a serious problem with waste in Japan.
Most older houses are still fine even after 60 years or so. The biggest issue I personally see is many are filled with asbestos. (until 2004 WTF Japan) If you consider having to reroof, tear out the bathroom and fix all other small stuff and add insulation, it will be the same price as a new house (even though larger windows and more space). Old houses have no resale value, so the risk of spending enough to buy new is much larger.
At the end of 30 years, the value of my house will be zero. Does that mean I will tear it down and rebuild? probably not because unless I do some weird arrangement, I probably won’t be able to pay for it. I’ll probably live in my house till I die, then my kids can fight over who gets the land. I assume they’ll either demolish and rebuild, or just sell the land.
My in laws decided to revamp their old house(no clue how old, but well over 50 years) by turning it into a big building with rentals; they live in part of the 1st and 2nd floor, while the 3rd and 4th floor is all rentals. It cost well over US$1M. How is a 75 year old pensioner to pay this off? they gave the rental rights to the bank for the next 30 years. all income from the rental spaces goes to pay off the loan. if there is a balance at the end of 30 years, their son is responsible for it(and I assume my inlaws will be long dead by then), and he can rent out the properties as he wishes, but renting 30 year old apartments can be a pretty tough sell.
Do the high taxes upon transferring ownership to loved ones affect this too?
If I can’t even give my property away, then is there really any reason they should pay to get my old property when they could just put that money towards buying a new one?