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Comment by jankyxenon | Hacker News Reader

Curious how all these advanced economies will deal with structural deflation when there is decreasing customer demand and consumption for most types of goods.

Example - do house prices start falling?

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Typically Japan is used as an example. Rural houses there are extremely cheap these days. Urban housing is still expensive.

To expand on this, housing in first-tier cities like Tokyo, Osaka, and Fukuoka is quite expensive (although not bonkers like it's gotten in Canada/Australia/etc). Housing in smaller second- and third-tier cities is very affordable, while still maintaining access to good hospitals, public transit, jobs, and so on. Rural housing is practically free aside from the cost of renovation.

Housing everywhere in Japan is basically free aside from the cost of renovation + the cost of the land. Houses are considered to be disposable there, you're expected to tear it down and build a new one when you buy one, so they are priced accordingly.

The difference is that land in Tokyo etc is expensive.

But why would you? It seems like most young people with no money could just stay for free.

Because it’s the (outdated) law due to earthquakes. Building and materials have gotten much better since the original laws were passed.

Are you required by law to build a new house? What if the house was just built a year ago.

Old houses in rural areas often need a lot of care due to their age and condition. They may have sat empty for several years and suffered damage from a lack of maintenance.

Also if they're cheap postwar construction, they may not be very earthquake safe. If they're older traditional architecture, they're probably ok but still probably need a lot of TLC.

Makes sense - if I look at the overall Japan numbers, they look pretty flat (seems like foreign nationals are plugging some of the decline).

Curious what happens when there's a real demographic nosedive.

Urban housing is still expensive

Not compared to most countries: https://www.sightline.org/2021/03/25/yes-other-countries-do-..., https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/11/opinion/editorials/tokyo-...

Deflation in goods and real estate, etc, but inflation in services, especially eldercare and healthcare.

The uk government has decided to import millions of people and hope that it creates good outcomes. So far it’s difficult to find a measure that has improved.

It’s because the UK is very new at it compared to say the US and Canada. IMO it’s still likely better than losing your adult working population though. We’ll see how the UK fares compared to Germany in the coming years

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