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Comment by freetime2 | Hacker News Reader

I think this is becoming increasingly less common. I am seeing lots of 30+ year old homes for sale in my local market that have been renovated by the seller before putting it up for sale. Housing quality has improved significantly since the post-WW2 era, so there’s no need to tear down a 30-year old home anymore. Some new appliances, wallpaper, and flooring is enough to attract a buyer.

Here’s an example of a listing of a 39 year old home where renovation is still in progress. They include product links to the new appliances they are installing now, and will update the listing once remodeling is completed. This is super common to see in used homes listings these days.

https://suumo.jp/chukoikkodate/gumma/sc_takasaki/nc_71189001...

I do still see a lot of houses being torn down. But they are more like 50+ years old, and in such a state of disrepair that they are not worth saving.

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I agree. I just bought a 20 year old place and it’s still in fine condition (and freshly renovated). Im planning to live in it for a while but honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if so long as I renovate it before selling I can get basically the same as what I paid now in another 10 or 15 years.

>I can get basically the same as what I paid now in another 10 or 15 years.

Accounting for inflation, or without (even approximately)?

Is Japan inflationary? I know their central bank actually had negative interest rates for a long time.. still, maybe.

A whole 4% year-over-year. Seems like a pretty healthy level of inflation to me.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-01-19/japan-s-i...

May I ask how difficult this was, in terms of paperwork and so forth, and (if you're not Japanese) getting to know your new neighbors? Thanks.

From what I've seen, buying a house is easy (you can hire brokers/realtors to do the paperwork) but the biggest hurdle is your visa status. Owning property does not entitle you to stay in-country longer than 90 days. You'll need a local job or spouse in order to reside there.

Loans can also be difficult for foreigners to acquire, so prearrange financing or cash.

I am not the person you responded to. I bought a house in Nagano last year. After living in Tokyo a long time The paperwork was not too difficult. Takes about 3 hours to walk through it all, in the presence of the seller, realtor and scrivener. Hand over the cash and take ownership.

The neighbours have been unexpectedly wonderful. Very kind. I live there most of the time and wish to contribute. I actually think it's advantageous to be a (European) foreigner. They realise all the little nit-picks that Japanese do to each other in the service of community would be mostly lost on me. YMMV.

Having lived in Tokyo for a long time probably helped, as you are familiar with the language, local customs, and dealing with beaurocracy. I'm not sure if the parent has prior experience living in Japan, but if not I would think the whole process could be quite bewildering.

I do have longtime priors, but there are always new things to learn. Thanks.

Ok then I would agree buying a house is easy. A real-estate agent should take care of everything and you are only really responsible for stamping your seal (about 100 times) and transfering the money.

Getting a loan is also fairly easy provided you are employed and have permanent residency (or a spouse who is a permanent resident or citizen). Shinsei Bank (recently acquired by SBI) seems to specialize in loaning to foreigners.

Neighbor situation is highly variable. I have some neighbors who I am quite friendly with, and others I literally have never seen. Typically neigbors will at least be polite, but you do hear horror stories of neighbors quarreling about taking out the trash, snow falling from the roof onto the neighbor's property, etc. My next-door neighbors live with their aging parents, and the grandfather (who has dementia) once shouted at someone who was doing work on my house. And people do tend to gossip, but it's mostly harmless.

That's helpful advice. Thanks again.

I have some passive knowledge of seals as used by Japanese folk

What determines the design of ones' seal as a foreigner? Just transliteration?

A Jitsu-in, which is the most official type of seal and is registered with the city office, needs to match your legal name. So mine is just my family name in latin characters. It looks funny but does the job.

For less formal seals you can pretty much pick whatever you want. For those I use my family name transliterated into katakana.

Most important regulation for earthquake proof was made in 1981, that is about 40 years ago. It's often mentioned first on buying house checklist. So I expect that more houses will be supplied to market.

>I think this is becoming increasingly less common.

That should be the case. As regulations get stiffer and stiffer the amount of area under the "long tail" get smaller. Of course there's always people who want to screech about how more is needed but at some point the tail is so narrow that society just ignores them because the amortized cost per improvement is just so high it's a no-starter.

I wonder if japan has an architect industrial complex that would lobby to keep regulatory changes regular.

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