Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000? | Hacker News Reader

Japan Has Millions of Empty Houses. Want to Buy One for $25,000?

nytimes.com

46 pointsbookofjoe80 comments

Let me save you from the momentary daydream and predictable disappointment after reading the clickbait article:

> Mr. Thursfield and his Japanese-born wife, Chihiro

> The couple have spent about $150,000 on renovations, and there’s more to do

Even with a Japanese wife, Japanese fluency, fondness for rural Japan, a career in remote work, and a flair for home renovation, I still have no interest in buying one of these houses. It’s a huge job to fix up most of these homes.

So, 20x less renovation than a $4m house in Palo Alto needs.

> So, 20x less renovation than a $4m house in Palo Alto needs.

While the comparison of renovation costs is interesting, it seems somewhat arbitrary to use Palo Alto as the sole point of comparison.

After all, Palo Alto is widely known as one of the most expensive cities in the United States, so it’s possible that the cost of renovations there could be significantly higher than in other areas. It would be fascinating to see a broader analysis of renovation costs across different cities, regions, or countries, perhaps even taking into account factors such as local labor costs and materials prices.

Only then can we truly understand the economic implications of home renovation and how it varies across the country.

Yes, it would be interesting, because you'd expect materials to cost roughly the same wherever you are in the country (modulo shipping costs), and cost of labor to account for much of the city to city difference.

A former landlord of mine, whose house I was renting in Palo Alto at the time (2021), shared that they were planning to kick off a major renovation that would total around 800K$ all-in.

That's an absolutely stunning figure to renovate a 3bdrm home, considering I've also heard anecdotes from outside California, of completely stripping down a similar-sized home to the studs, redoing all plumbing / electricity / walls / flooring / high-end-everything in the kitchen... for under 250K$.

So, where's the extra half-million dollars going? The delta in renovation costs alone between these anecdotes represents 10 years of the average California constructor worker's salary [per the BLS](https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472061.htm).

Older tradespeople are retiring and younger participation in the trades has not kept up (for a variety of reasons). Labor improvement costs will only go up if you or unpaid help (friends) are unable to do the work. Higher level thesis is structural demographics in general compressing productive worker cohort.

https://www.google.com/search?q=skilled+trades+shortage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89fsWN9lxVs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpggP9ygO_U

I have been talking to people in the construction/trades industry for a long, long time. I sell them stuff.

At least for the last w20 years I've been talking with them, owners cannot find employees. It's the biggest complaint that I hear.

I talk to construction company owners all the time and journeymen make $100,000+ per year. Not at all the companies, not the shitty owners, but if you look, you will find that money.

This is way better than an average university education in all but a few majors like computer science.

Not only that, but as you apprentice and learn the trade, you get paid, unlike university where you pay.

When I went to university, you could get any degree, it didn't matter, because tuition was $600 per year. Get an English degree or art degree. You could pay your tuition and books and fees working a summer job.

Now, if you go to university, anything other than a computer science degree is a waste of money and time, more or less. Most of the STEM field majors suck - you don't get squat for a biology degree or chemistry degree, or so I hear. Only computer science is a sure thing. Oh, there might be a few weird degrees you can make massive money in, like petrochemical engineering or whatever, but jobs are far and few between, and there's no a massive market for those type of degree, unlike computer science.

I have known electricians making well over $100k, and a carpenter who does the same.

Both work 6 days a week, long days, and often physically demanding work. The electrician is at least union and has protections through them; he pulls data center gigs on his off days.

This is also around Northern VA, where $100k salary is fairly unimpressive; it's not SF or Vancouver, but housing ain't cheap and $100k ain't what it used to be.

> This is way better than an average university education in all but a few majors like computer science.

Quality of life is way lower however, most tradies bodies are in pain once in their 40s

Shipping costs are a massive deal in construction so you’re stuck with local materials and local workers. Which recursively means your also stuck with fairly local factory workers making those materials etc.

That said, the upper end of materials get crazy expensive anywhere. From basic linoleum floors in bathrooms, the next rung is tile and underfloor heating systems, and above that people are importing hand crafted marble from Italy etc. So each bathroom could have a 100$ toilet or a 15,000$ one etc.

Any high COL will have expensive trades people. Maybe when demand quiets down or more people start chasing money in the trades will prices come down, but it is $800K ATM because that's what it takes to get on the list.

I was quoted $150K for a full kitchen renovation in Seattle. Ugh.

That's what prices in the US should have been like, but housing and food was kept artificially low for decades due to use of migrant labor. The US market could stomach stagnating wages because illegals did all of the work for at or below minimum wage.

Now there is a shortage of trades and COVID + "build the wall" anti-immigration pushes meant there are no migrants, so you're paying regular price for 1st world labor.

> but housing and food was kept artificially low for decades due to use of migrant labor.

Food maybe, but housing? It has been rising since the last huge housing bust in the 90s, with only a blip downturn after 2008. Migrant labor is great because they want to do those jobs at all, and it isn't really about wages, poorer Americans just seem to be content to complain about immigrants while watching FoxNews with no ambition to do those jobs, richer Americans are the ones employing those migrants in the construction and agriculture (as well as Trump-style hospitality) industries while at the same time using illegal immigration as a wedge issue.

This isn't unique to that region.

Construction costs in London are significantly higher than in the north of England.

I'd be surprised if this isn't common worldwide. Tradesmen are generally in high demand in these areas, it's not like McDonalds where you can just pay minimum wage + $5 and hope for the best.

And as the other poster says, bulk materials are, well, bulky. Timber is comparatively expensive in the UK because we don't have vast forests like the US.

Or move to Ireland and buy 20 already finished houses for that price

200K wouldn't buy much of a house in Ireland these days.

> Households paid a median or mid-point price of €305,000 for a residential property in the 12 months to January 2023.

https://www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/ep/p-rppi/resi...

And that would be a lot higher if you want to buy in a city like Dublin or Cork.

In a small Japanese rural buffer. What sort of comparison is that.

Also:

> Mr. Thursfield has done much of the renovation work himself, including woodworking.

I've been watching the progress of this Australian, who with his Japanese wife bought an abandoned farmhouse. His work ethic is way better than mine - in the past four years he's made tremendous progress in getting the place fixed up.

I really like the wood beam construction with ceramic tile roof that makes up the style of the home. They bought the house at auction for ¥3mm (about $23,000 USD today). No idea what they've spent to date, but I would guess 3-4 times that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgw_8fTkqNk

It seems to be a genre on YouTube, here's another channel where they did similar, though they didn't buy the place, they're renting it for $300/year (I had no idea that there were spiders whose eyes glow when you point a flashlight at them) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_Jzd_1c5cA

Article is about the same person, I think? $150,000 in renovations so far.

Important to note that, unlike in many other countries, housing in Japan is a depreciating asset, like a car. Their value goes to zero over time. This is somewhat contrary to what many of us are accustomed to, where houses are appreciating (or at least stable) assets which maintain or grow in value.

This doesn’t make any sense to me. Why wouldn’t a really poor family buy it when it’s really close to zero then, especially if it’s a perfectly habitable house.

It's likely not perfectly habitable as the price heads to zero.

If it’s a depreciating asset there’s a good chance it’s maintained while the price is dropping. How bad could it get as long as it’s not abandoned?

The whole thing is built on a cultural premise where people don’t want to live in houses that have been lived in. It’s fickle and it’s amazing to me that it has persisted for so long.

People buy used houses all the time, at least in major cities. They just properly recognize that the value of the house goes to zero after ~40 years, but the land it's on retains (or even gains) value.

Honestly, I don't see how this is that much different than America: in the richest cities there, people frequently buy up some shitty old 1950s house on valuable land, tear down the house, and build a bigger and nicer one. Of course, a bunch of the elderly neighbors whine and complain about how the shitty old 50s house had "character"...

Because the land still has value so it's cheaper to just build a new house on the land.

When you say “goes to zero”, does this mean they really trend to zero or a way of saying that declining population means the demand keeps decreasing?

I’m trying to figure out if it’s a population thing or a short-lived construction thing.

Short-lived construction. The average lifespan of a house in Japan is 20-30 years [0]. Honestly, I like the approach. I'm living in a 100+ year old house. It costs a fortune to heat and cool. Any renovation brings the risk of toxic substances released into the air. But it's got lots of character, right? I guess so, but it's overrated. I dream of living in a new house with good insulation and easy to access electrical conduits.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_Japan

> The average lifespan of a house in Japan is 20-30 years [0]

This is a myth that I've seen many times. It's true for taxable value, but people just live there longer, like 30-50 years. House quality is improving since 80s (in -80s, they built crappy houses massively after houses were gone by the war) so lifespan will be expanded in the future. You can find older houses by using Google street view at random street. https://www.google.com/maps/@38.0624007,139.9893573,3a,75y,1...

We'd love to but the immigration policies are very unfriendly.

A while back I looked at how I would score on their "points based" immigration calculator thing.

It wasn't good at all.

I suspect they will have to have a strong rethink of their immigration policies in the next 10-20 years.

There's many ways to immigrate to Japan, and the point system is one of the hardest because it gives you direct access to Permanent Residency (incidentally I will apply next year to it) instead of the temporary Work Visa.

As far as you have a degree and a job offer from a Japanese company (both should be related) it's trivial to fill the paperwork to come here. Engineers in particular have it pretty easy, with many Engineering jobs not even requiring you to speak Japanese.

But that's the trick, it's "okay" to come to Japan with a work permit, which allows you to work and pay your taxes but you have to be actively working with those, unless you have switched to PR (which IS a lot harder), or get out of the country. This has been criticized a lot, Japan is very friendly for young professional workers, but will never treat you as one of their own and once there's a sign of trouble you are on your own.

In practice if you’re out of a job you can be put on a special visa to look for work and if done in good faith I’ve heard of people who were on such visas for like 6 months.

Another point about being “on your own”. Basically every service that exists to help people out of work is accessible to foreigners. My locality offers “loans” (partially aid, part loan) for people who experience massive drops in salaries, for example. Any resident. Ive almost never run into a service gated on citizenship (except for some job postings with the govt)

Oh it's even simpler, you just keep the same visa and officially you are good for 3 months, unofficially it's much longer (as long as you have left in your previous visa), so that's good and much better than in e.g. the USA, I'm just saying that the jump from normal work visa to Permanent Residency (equivalent to the greencard) is a bit harsh.

Say for example you've been working for 7 years in Japan and your father gets sick back in your home country. If you go back for few months to help out you are basically a goner (unless you can keep remote working). Or that after working e.g. 10 years abroad and 5 in Japan you just want to take 6 month break for a bad burnout. No cannot do.

It's very intentional. Japan is largely homogenous and there's a lot of support for keeping it that way.

Until they homogenous their way to a country that doesn’t breed and has 75% of the population above 60.

I’m pretty sure they’re more okay with that than letting immigrants in. The Japanese have no interest in bringing different looking people into the country.

I’m sure they are but will that sentiment persist when threatened with extinction/forced breeding programs.

>A while back I looked at how I would score on their "points based" immigration calculator thing. >It wasn't good at all.

So I take it you don't have a college degree or work in the software field like most people here.

It's true: if you have no skills and work as a barista or janitor, Japan isn't very interested in having you immigrate here. If you're a skilled tech professional, however, it's the easiest country in the world to immigrate to. Experienced software engineers can easily score 70-80 points. With 80, you can apply for permanent residence in 1 year.

I have a degree and 10+ years in tech.

I redid it today, and now have 85 points.

Amusingly, I just did some back of the envelope maths and worked out I could probably bump that to over 120 points in 2 years if I set my mind to it.

As for "easiest", no.

I've moved a lot, there's many countries that are far easier :)

I don't know of any highly developed nations where you can easily get permanent residence in less than 1 year.

Do you have a college degree or 10 years professional experience? Congratulations, after finding a job you can move here. And on top of that your visa is not tied to your employer so there’s no visa risk if you find a better job on the spot ([0])

There’s some immigration stuff that’s tougher, but based off everything I’ve heard from dealing with Anglo countries or the EU, most people on this website would have zero problems dealing with immigration.

[0] technically the high skilled professional visa is employer-associated but people doing these jobs can easily pay to navigate the subtleties in any job change

Can you become a citizen? Because most people aren’t interested in some perpetual limbo.

Yes, “easily” based on what people who do it say. But getting citizenship requires [0] renouncing other citizenships.

There’s a permanent resident status which is I think is closest to a green card. You can’t vote but you don’t have to work or otherwise justify your existence. You can temporarily leave the country for several years if you intend to return (apparently this is pretty loose so “several” = 10)

There was a window during COVID where permanent residents were stuck outside the country. It was a couple of months, and I’m hopeful future incidents would be more humane… but citizens were not stranded.

[0] there is some pedantry on “requires”.

The answer is no. No, it isn’t easy and no you will not get citizenship. Japan is notoriously difficult (impossible) to become a real citizen in.

I don’t know why you would say it’s impossible. 10k people do it a year, it’s a well documented process. The biggest hurdle is probably the language? Since most people can exist in Japan without a full grasp of the language in more ways than other countries

That's a bald-faced lie. Anyone can apply after 5 years and it's not that hard. I know people who are naturalized here.

I've lived in Japan since 2009. In my opinion, most foreign residents who want to stay here long-term are interested only in permanent residence, and not citizenship. Reason being they don't want to give up their existing non-Japanese citizenship (which is technically a requirement for citizenship in Japan).

Would really love to see the LDP decide to open up immigration for folks from ASEAN member states. The JICA's infra projects in the region are a strong soft power play, and are getting delivered faster than anything funded by the Belt and Road initiative (or at least when I look at the different projects in Metro Manila, they are).

Not sure how true it is but an Asian friend told me the race that an Asian hates the most is another Asian...

Looking at the immigration policies of China and Japan, I think he might be right.

On the flip side, you have subreddits like 2asean4you where nationalist rhetoric is acknowledged and lampooned in their memes.

There's also so much shared between cultures in the region, like how kakigori evolved into Halo Halo in Manila or how Takoyaki is popular all over the Philippines. Most of the names of our popular foods have names rooted in Hokkien/Southern Min.

Yeah but all that can change in the span of a generation. The old die and things change quickly.

It can -- maybe. So far don't see that happening.

I've met a bunch of Chinese people here, some of whom are naturalized Japanese. How much more open do you think it needs to get, open borders?

I would certainly prefer to drive on a JICA-built bridge than a OBOR one.

If you can secure a job in Japan (admittedly a big if), they're far more friendly than, say, the US.

Not in how you're going to be treated. During Covid permanent residents were kept out because they're foreigners while citizens were able to travel to Japan[1]. Anyone who expects a western immigrant experience in Japan would be sorely mistaken.

[1]: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/19/national/social...

If you are from the US: tit for tats :)

I’m joking, none of that is the individual faults.

https://archive.ph/dk1tP

This seems important: "Since buying the farmhouse in 2019, the couple have spent about $150,000 on renovations"

$200K for a house is still cheap in most places.

It’s rural Japan. That’s daylight robbery.

Rural Japan is not most places though

It also depends on if renovations will just be done by yourself... can be dramatically cheaper (if you have the time).

I would pick Italy or rural France. But also … I can legally live and work there.

Where do you look for a house in Italy or France?

Try https://www.leboncoin.fr/ventes_immobilieres/offres

It will give you an idea of the prices.

Expensive real estate is often overpriced for no good reason. However, cheap real estate is almost always underpriced for a very good reason.

This story appears almost annually in the NYTimes I feel. Or at least it appears on HN annually, cited from some large media. I wonder why by this point I’d think everyone has heard the standard rebuttals/clarifications.

>Incredible Shrinking Japan: The great country’s population has fallen for 12 years in a row.

https://archive.ph/93ccw

The first one of these I looked at turned out to be in a fishing town/village in the very west of Japan near Hirado City, Nagasaki Pref a US$20k 2700 sq ft "old folks home" that appears livable as is from the pictures and is comparable in many ways to Salcombe, Devon, UK where I happened to grow up and which is now one of the most expensive places in the UK. I can easily see becoming a Google Translate hermit in a place like that.

Earlier article: Houses in Japan are going for as little as $500 [0]

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28266233

The person featured in the article has posted a lot of great videos on YouTube (one of them is embedded in the article). He’s very honest about the challenges, and it doesn’t look easy.

Would pay $25,000 to avoid living there.

" Q:Mom, dad, why do we live in the middle of nowhere? A:Dad likes to work on houses... "

Thats great, but isn't there a lot of red tape in moving to another country?

Depends where.

Japan? Enough red tape to mummify yourself.

I moved to Canada, where it's culturally similar to the US, has the same language (mostly), and it is still a giant PITA. Unless you speak Japanese or are very, very willing to try to learn you're gonna have a hard time.

Don't buy these old houses. They are not earthquake resistant.

Nope

Reply on news.ycombinator.com