Comment by keiferski
10 hours ago
I watch one of those “apartments for rent in Japan” channels and I’m consistently shocked how inexpensive apartments are in lower tier cities / not Tokyo. Like a studio in an inconvenient part of Fukuoka for $200-250 a month.
I guess the salaries are lower, but it’s hard to imagine such cheap rent in the equivalent American city.
It's hard to compare to the US as a big part of this is the very weak yen.
I spent a couple years traveling the world and punctuated my travels with a 2 week stop in Japan (Tokyo/Osaka/Kyoto) in May '24. I was not prepared for how inexpensive everything was... much less than several eastern European cities I had just come from, more on par with places like Mexico City.
It was still very affordable in 2009 - 2014 when the yen was not weak.
Think I've heard anecdotes about Tokyo being pretty affordable as well. Quick search shows less than 1/3 of income typically spent on housing, which is much better than major US cities.
Yep. Counterintuitively, housing in Japan depreciates unlike most of the world
Wonder how it is like in other countries with shrinking populations. Say, Korea.
Intuitively, it would make sense for housing prices to decrease when the demand decreases, supply being equal (It's not like housing deteriorates significantly in the short term).
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Housing built with pine 2x4s really _should_ depreciate especially in termite/earthquake regions like CA, but doesn't seem like that'll ever happen.
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https://www.ft.com/content/023562e2-54a6-11e6-befd-2fc0c26b3...
> Here is a startling fact: in 2014 there were 142,417 housing starts in the city of Tokyo (population 13.3m, no empty land), more than the 83,657 housing permits issued in the state of California (population 38.7m), or the 137,010 houses started in the entire country of England (population 54.3m).
Part of that is that Japan actually builds housing, while literally every major US metro area has a massive self-inflicted shortage of housing (https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives...).
Tokyo is massive, you can literally be living rural and still be in Tokyo. Could be an hour or more commute till you get into the metro area.
Not all of Tokyo is nice either. They also probably won’t rent to “outsiders” without giving any explanation so…
I mean... You are looking at a place that is about 250 square feet? There isn't an appetite for offering units that small in the US.
I don’t agree at all — plenty of college students, 20-30s somethings would love a space like this in NYC, SF, etc. at a lower price point than what’s currently available.
The limits seem to be from legal restrictions on minimum apartment size, not market demand.
Apologies, on that I agree. What we don't seem to have, is a willingness to build and offer these places.
That is, I was specifically saying there is a lack of appetite to offer these. Not that there is lack of appetite to buy/rent them.
I think so too. I'm an early 30s that would love to pay a fraction of the current market rates for a Tokyo-sized unit in SF.
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The building codes in most jurisdictions wouldn't even allow such a thing, whether there would be demand for it or not. But the lengths people are willing to go for small apartments in top tier cities (NYC, especially) show that there is be demand in the right situations. Of course, the whole point of living in Manhattan is to not spend time at home.
But there are interesting experiments going on. Where I live (Toronto) has had a huge build-out of small ~4-500sqf bachelors that were hoovered up by flippers and mom-n-pop landlords. At the peak of the boom, they were selling for ridiculous prices ($800K+) and the poor build quality of everything from elevators (of which there often weren't enough, resulting in lineups and long waits) to water pipes that burst meant that savvy prospective owners stay clear.
There's a correction happening, but people don't want to unload their "investments" at below what they cost and since mortgages are recourse people can't just walk away.
In theory there should be demand for these units from the young, corporate owners, 2nd homes in the city, etc. But the prices have just not come down enough to make any of those worthwhile.
Right, I should have been clear that my assertion was not that there is lack of demand. My assertion is we don't build and offer this style. Outside of school dormitories. And even then, there is still a preference for bigger.
Would love to see more on the correction you are referencing. So much of the discourse I see focusing on "starter homes." Which, these are not that.
In BC, the government bought all the unsold, unfit units to prop up the housing market. Your tax dollars at work!