Raze, rebuild, repeat: why Japan knocks down its houses after 30 years | Hacker News Reader

Raze, rebuild, repeat: why Japan knocks down its houses after 30 years

theguardian.com

61 pointsjrs23543 comments

Quality absolutely sucks. I live in a fairly new home and walls are paper thin. In the winter, inside feels colder than outside. I am told even newer homes are better buil. I think the issue can be attributed to multiple causes:

1. Culture. Japanese don't like to sell or buy second hand. New cars, new homes, new everything any time they can afford it.

2. Build quality is garbage. The culture of tare downs does not promote better bulding quality so most just go with the old tried and tested approaches.

3. Too many architects and construction workers. I believe the jobs market is pushing for heavy marketing of new construction. People are being sold on earthquake safety standards but really, all those people need to earn a living somehow.

I'm not sure that this is any different from the West (at least considering the many places in which I have lived).

Pay more, get more.

I think it depends on the builder - my mother in law rebuilt her (~100 year old) home in a mid-sized city in Japan about 15 years ago. It seems comparable to american houses -- good insulation for winter (which is good since the only heat is a split-unit heat pump downstairs, none in the bedrooms), noise isolation between rooms (and between floors) seems similar to american wood frame construction. Of course, the tatami room downstairs has paper doors, so if you end up sleeping there, you hear everything in the living room and kitchen.

Are Japanese houses even worse than American houses ? From a European stand point most American houses are built cheaply and especially their insulation is much worse than in Middle Europe. At least that is what I've been told and what I've experienced some years ago.

How old of American home are you comparing to?

If you are looking at a 40 year US home, it may only have R15 or R20. If you are looking at a new normal home in the midwest, you are looking at an R40 or so. If you custom build you can pay the extra few hundred bucks and get R60 or more..

Well in Austria the current standard is triple pane windows (my parents house form the 70ies had double pane windows).

I don't know the current percentage, but passive houses (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house) are getting more and more in this area.

Not beeing in the construction business I can't give you any details how the way we insulate our houses compares to your information. Most of the houses here are built with concrete and bricks, so they're insulated differently (styrofoam, as much as I know).

Not sure this is a useful comparison?

Chicago average temperature: http://www.holiday-weather.com/chicago/averages/

Sydney average temperature: http://www.holiday-weather.com/sydney/averages/

In Sydney, your primary concern is heat. In Chicago, your primary concern is cold. They have different strategies to combat. I.e. good blinds could cut your cooling bill 50% in Sydney. Good blinds will not make a dent in your Chicago bill..

Austria in Europe, not Australia on the Southern Hemisphere :)

Innsbruck average temperature: http://www.holiday-weather.com/innsbruck/averages/

That's pretty close to Chicago.

There are contextual concerns though, I'm often told that western-standard insulation would be very expensive in japan: you'd need to dehumidify like mad to keep the entire thing from moulding and rotting.

What about Florida, Georgia, Louisiana? Humidity doesn't seem to be an issue with homes there. How is Japan any different?

We run HVAC systems 100% of the time basically. If you turn a house HVAC off in Florida for a few months the house will generally be full of mold.

Couple points that are often overlooked with regard to Japanese housing:

1. Mortgage rates are far lower in Japan than in America. My U.S. credit union is offering 3.6% 30-year fixed-rate loans; the average for Japan is around 1.3% for a standard loan, plus it's fairly easy (for a typical Japanese person) to get that knocked down a bit for various reasons.

1a. Even this is understating things a bit because, again, Japanese houses depreciate in value so the bank doesn't have the same collateral against the loan that a U.S. bank has. In essence, the Japanese mortgage should really be compared against a 30-year, $300-600k car loan (which of course, doesn't exist).

2. Japanese buyers have much more freedom in the design of the house than American buyers. The average person can really get their "dream house" built (within limits: you still have to build on the small, ~1000-square-foot) without worrying about resale value or angry neighbors and HOAs. Wanna build a house out of concrete with one tiny window in the front? Wanna put a lawn on your roof? 3-story house with a small balcony on the fourth floor to catch a peek at Mt.Fuji? Go for it! All of these are within a 3-minute walk in my thoroughly ordinary Japanese neighborhood.

Is 1 and 1a due to the culture, where it would be a big shame to not pay off a loan? Or is there something else keeping the interest rates so low? (maybe the overall stagnation of the economy, makes a 1.3% interest rate look really good for a bank)

I glossed over a few details, but the main reasons are that a.) current interest rates are lower in Japan than the U.S. to begin with (BOJ benchmark rate is 0%, vs. Fed rate of 1.25%) and b.) the most common long-term Japanese mortgage is actually a 35-year mortgage partially guaranteed by the government. The 35-year term (vs. 30 years) knocks the interest rate down a bit, and the partial guarantee (similar to a U.S. FHA or VA loan, but the buyer still needs a 10-20% downpayment) reduces it even further.

Part of the reason they tear down old houses is that termites infest the wood and foundations, making it cheaper to raze the home that try to fix it. Black mold is also a big problem in many of the older homes. Newer homes are built with better materials and circulate air better, which helps with the mold issue, so we may see more remodeling done in the future.

Another issue is zoning. Some houses were built when zoning laws were more lax. It isn't uncommon to see a land-locked house that is only accessible by walking in between other houses. Newer zoning laws don't allow new construction under these circumstances, so land owners will typically raze the entire block and rebuild from scratch.

Thanks for the insight

Reminds me of Sweden hills: http://nordic.businessinsider.com/this-japanese-town-looks-e...

Japan is actually the largest export market for Swedish prefab houses. Our houses are built with a 80 year life expectancy and adapted to similar climate. So I guess that is what makes them attractive.

The 80 year life sounds interesting, might you have a link for that? Swedish is ok, I can use GT :)

I am not sure of the expected lifespan, but these type of buildings should be possible to maintain for 80 years.

http://astelmodular.se

Excluding the value of the land, why do houses in the U.S. appreciate anyway? Nothing else I buy does, but somehow this wooden box that I leave out in the rain for 30 years becomes more valuable with time.

(Although I have a sneaking suspicion that years of property taxes and maintenance costs eat up most of the profit...)

Supply and demand. new cars get built everyday but house supply remains the same (for the most part), while population increases.

1.2 million new housing starts in the U.S. annually, though.

Sure. Many are in cornfields in a small town.

So random area in my zip code:

https://www.zillow.com/mishawaka-in-46545/home-values/

It is basically flat over the last 10 years. If you go back further, it more or less matches inflation.

Now look at someplace people actually want to live, like Chicago

https://www.zillow.com/chicago-il-60614/home-values/

The value curve is much different.

So basically, it is the land that goes up. Your actual HOUSE value goes down a tiny bit every year. I.e. all else being equal, a brand new house sells for a bit more than a 40 year old house. But if that 40 year old house is on an amazing piece of land, the overall (house + land) value could very easily appreciate a LOT.

It's the value of the land, essentially (or of the land plus zoning plus facilities). The actual structure tends to depreciate in real terms, though in nominal terms replacement cost will rise with inflation.

It's just the land. In SF we have "houses" that are partly burnt to the ground and unfit for living being sold for > $800k.

There is a deeply rooted cultural aspect to this. In Japan, the wooden temples are continuously rebuilt, so houses are just a footnote, basically.

The exact implementation of the old temple building isn't valued; just its form, or something like that.

Here's an interesting paper on the economic impact of this custom:

Obstacles to Affluence: Thoughts on Japanese Housing (pdf) https://www.nri.com/global/opinion/papers/2008/pdf/np2008137...

I didn't see it mentioned but I wonder if young Japanese people are pushing for more room, and larger spaces. IIRC homes in Japan tend to be on the small side, at least compared to western hemisphere countries.

Average new home size in Japan seems about average for western countries; about 90sqm, so bigger than the UK, a little smaller than Germany, and so on. Houses are much bigger specifically in the US (or at elast rural and usburban US; US apartments are more similar to other western ones), but the US is a major outlier.

1000 sq/ft is TINY by US standards.

As someone with a family of 6 in a 1200 sq/ft house... Yeah, we get odd looks from everyone when they hear how small the house is.

I think I work with some single folks that feel their 3000 sq/ft house is already too small for them. :D

> I think I work with some single folks that feel their 3000 sq/ft house is already too small for them.

As a single person with a 700sqft house, this is puzzling to me. I already spend long enough vacuuming to satisfy me... Seriously, a 3000sqft house sounds like an absolute maintenance nightmare for one person (or in general, really...)

The US is also a major outlier among the places you mentioned, in that it's still breeding at above-replacement rates. I wonder if the difficulty of getting a house/car that can comfortably accommodate multiple children is a big factor.

Now that you mentioned it.. Since japan's birth rate is decreasing year by year, it does make sense that home prices naturally decrease/depreciate. Simply less demand.

I think that's primarily down to the US population being generally younger than most other western countries, and probably to an extent the average age of first marriage in the US, which is pretty much the lowest in the developed world. It's likely mostly the age profile thing, though, and the difference will diminish over time.

The US house size thing is, I suspect, more down to a combination of regulation and consumer preference. There may be some aspect of available land, but it's not the biggest factor; sparsely populated European countries, like Ireland, mostly have houses about the average European size.

The US generally has lighter regulation around energy efficiency, and to some extend fire safety and various other things, than most European countries for house building. This reduces the per-sqm cost of building, making big houses more feasible.

But US consumers also seem to prefer a large house (often a pointlessly large house; see the 3-5000sqft McMansions which have oddities like multiple dining rooms to use up the surplus space) with a very long commute to basically anything, where you're totally dependent on a car, whereas this is less popular in most European countries; they exist to some extent (especially in rural areas), but are less appealing.

Ultimately, you don't need a big house or car to have kids. In fact, Americans were having more kids back when their houses and cars were smaller. The big car, in particular, is a fairly modern invention; minivans have only really been a thing since the late 80s, and the SUV is a creature of the late 90s.

I've often thought about the large size of houses in the United States. I'm sure the reasons are complex and various, but here are some of the drivers of large and "cheaply built" homes. I don't say "cheaply" derogatorily, but as a comparison in cost of underlying materials. The vast majority of single-family residences in the US are made with wood (as apposed to masonry). Most homes in the US that appear to be made of masonry are done so with a veneer layer only.

- When a homeowner sells their primary residence, they are allowed a tax exemption of up to $250,000, or twice that amount if married. Since the 1960s, inflation-adjusted prices have been on the rise, which means the potential for a large tax-free gain when you sell.

- Housing in the United States are massively subsidized by tax policy. Mortgage interest is a deduction to income when filing federal income tax. This means that a dollar spent on a mortgage payment is worth more than a dollar spent on something such as a vacation, a car or other non-deductible purchase.

- Americans tend to move much more frequently than Europeans. An American will live in, on average, 2 or 3 times as many residences than a European [1]. As such, I think there is less "attachment" to a particular structure. Because people anticipate living in or owning a residence for less than 10 years, it seems that size is prioritized over durability.

- In the United States, the quality of public schools is highly correlated to the income of the surrounding area [2]. Most communities with higher income households are full of neighborhoods have covenants that require homes of a minimum size that are legally enforceable through homeowner associations. Not surprisingly, individuals with resources take measures to ensure that their neighbors are their economic peers. Parents are generally willing to sacrifice a lot to ensure high quality education for their children, which means they are willing to spend a large percentage of their income on housing (if that's what it takes to gain access to good schools).

Full disclosure: I am an American but have traveled extensively throughout the world and have often wondered what drives the size of homes in the US.

1. http://news.gallup.com/poll/162488/381-million-adults-worldw...

2. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/08/propert...

None of this, except arguably the durability thing, really impacts the size, though, only the price (and a lot of those big houses are quite cheap). As a European (Irish; average new build is about 90sqm), what puzzles me is what’s attractive about the size, especially when you get to 3000sqft and over. It just seems like a lot of space that most families would have little use for, which needs maintenance (and presumably costs a fortune to heat and cool).

The cost of utilities in the US are relatively cheap - especially compared to many places in Europe. The cost of electricity in Ireland, for example, is more than triple what I pay in my state [1].

This also applies to gasoline / petrol. Much cheaper in the USA which makes living father from work less of an issue, which means cheaper and bigger lots are a viable option for living. Big, inexpensive parcels of land allow for bigger homes.

When people are incentivized by the government to spend money in housing and when the cost of building materials used are relatively cheap, and the cost of living in a home is modest, I suppose the proliferation of larger homes is not surprising.

1. http://dailycaller.com/2016/05/01/these-maps-show-just-how-m...

it's still breeding at above-replacement rates

The US is no longer breeding at above-replacement; we're now just slightly below.

However, to quote from the link below: “Yes, it’s below replacement level, but not dramatically so,” Dr. Brady said. “We have a high level of influx of immigrants that compensates for it.”

This could, of course, change if Trump ever builds the wall. :)

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/03/health/united-states-fert...

I wish this was prevalant in the States. Here you are real estate "investors" (flippers) who think putting lipstick in a pig is improving the house. Cosmetic improvements like new flooring or painting everything new.

While the 100 year old internal plumbing is about to implode or the fragile walls continue to creak.

Until fairly recently there was no way to earthquake proof houses. Japan also gets a ton of typhoons. Add fires and it is no surprise there's no culture of building to last because it was impossible to. Every city in Japan has been rebuilt a hundred times over!

Its fascinating to see different cultures deal with problems.

I have seen structures many decades old stand just fine after hundreds of earthquakes here in Japan. I really don't think earthquake standards are an issue - more a sales point.

Depends on the building. The average home is built to different standards than a castle or temple.

Before bricks were introduced and straw was outlawed European cities didn't last long either. And in modern times European construction isn't very good either. Very few social housing built in 50s, 60s and 70s still stand.

Two hundred year old houses are pretty rare outside tourist areas.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com