Why Used Japanese Homes are WORTHLESS!

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Hello. Former 大工 aka carpenter in Japan. I built a few homes as well as renovated many. Unfortunately, much of this video is simply incorrect. The average house built in Japan is not different than the average house built in America. The construction method from foundation to framing is almost identical to how we build them in the U.S. They tend to use pole construction rather than stick built though. They’re not building houses that don’t last, it’s that only in the last 30 years did they actually start to build homes that were similar to western ones. Also, when you buy a used home you don’t have to upgrade everything to current earthquake standards. This is just incorrect. A majority of what happens is replacement of tatami style rooms to western ones with modern flooring and replacing mud clay walls with drywall. The reason many people choose to tear down houses instead of renovate is because there was a huge housing boom during the bubble period from the 60s to the 80s. Those houses were built with very dated techniques and were built quickly without the best construction methods. Houses built today are built much better. Another factor is that there is limited land. Sometimes two old houses will be purchased in order build a larger new home or a home with a yard. There are so many factors that are just too nuanced to understand unless you actually lived there and did real estate and carpentry like I have. This video is 80% incorrect.

There's no point in building long term housing in Japan when Godzilla destroys your house every couple of years. 😮😂😂

"here in the US, we are used to seeing really old houses" - as somebody from Europe: "No, you aren't!" 🤣😂🤣

Here in the US we get cheap prefab homes that barely make it to 30 years with a pricetag of something they think will make it to 300 years.

Just in the last year: 1. Roof repair 2. New floodlights 3. Kitchen cabinet resurfacing 4. Gutter realignment 5. Woodwork. It never stops when you own a house.

Hi from Okinawa Japan! Yes! We got an estimate of our home that is built with Concrete about @44 yrs ago (Okinawa does not have the amount of earthquakes as mainland Japan). The estimate was zero for the house even with all the @$200K renovations, but the land had risen to 5x the original amount because we are 3 blocks from the beach and considered a resort area. The Japanese value land over House!

A few issues you missed - 1) there are still a lot of new houses constructed on “virgin” land (former rice fields cut up into residential lots) and lots of old homes being left empty to rot. So your ‘replacement rate’ is actually a bit skewed from reality. 2) one reason to abandon old houses and start from scratch is the extremely high cost of demolition and disposal of construction. waste. The derelict house removal represents a high cost compared to just buying a new house on repurposed rice field lots. Tearing down and rebuilding in the same plot only makes sense if you are in a downtown area with limited availability of land.

This video is very well researched but I think there are a few points that are a bit odd? Like mentioning wabisabi? I've lived in Japan for 14 years and have gone to several model home venues to look into buying a home. Wabisabi plays no part in the approach to home buying or building lol That's more in the context of interior design than the actual building. Also, modern homes typically don't use wooden joints because they're expensive and typically reserved for traditional structures like temples. Most new homes are prefabs built in a factory and shipped in pieces to where the home is going to be built. They typically use screws and bolts since these are more resistant to cracking during an earthquake. These older cheap homes that international folk are losing their minds over are cheap because they aren't insulated or are missing other modern fixings (some might still have old Japanese style toilets) or they were built in regions that are too remote for most modern families. This is the problem my husband has with the family home his mother lives in. It's a 4 bedroom 1.5 bath house in a mountaintop residential area. Built in the 90s for about 300k, currently worth about 80k. Because it's on a mountain, it's cold all winter and has to be heated with a gas heater or via ac units in each room. The gas heater will produce carbon monoxide so the room has to be aired every few hours. Once these heaters are shut off, say at night, the temperature inside the house is comparable to temps outside. The train station is 15 min away by car, 45 by bus, and 1.5hrs by train to the closest big city, which is typically where everyone works. As you can see, a lot of concessions have to be made, especially when you don't work in the same city. Luckily, just renting a house or apartment in larger cities is pretty cheap (usually under 1k), and though it's still not insulated (that's a more modern feature for homes here), it's much more convenient because you almost never need a car and can get downtown in 10 min. Now, say you wanted to buy a home in this city where renting is so cheap? Welp, land tax in cities is crazy and you'll easily burn through closer to half a mil trying to get a 70m squared home. Renting in the city is reasonable, buying a home not so much. while buying a home in the countryside is super affordable, there are tons of other hidden (lifestyle) costs. Also, wages have been stagnant for 30 years, which is another reason why housing is more affordable. Sorry for the wall of text! Just wanted to give a bit more context for housing in Japan! It's not a mystic cultural phenomenon, mostly just economics and a country that's been in a depression for 3 decades. The way they take apart wooden structures like temples and shrines is pretty cool tho!

Here in Austria i lived in a house built in the year 751- that is over 1200 years old. The only thing that was obvious are the 3ft (1m) thick walls and tiny windows. Not a museum but a regular house.

30 yrs in uk is considered a new build almost. My 100yr old house isnt considered old as half the towns houses are 100s of years old n zero stigma or desirability issues related to their age. People like how solid they are, with better room sizes, high ceilings, n better noise insulation

I lived in Japan for about 10 years and continue to visit regularly and there are a "few" things there that are designed to keep the economy in "motion". As you mentioned houses are one of them. The next one is the car industry. The cost to keep an "old" car on the road is incredible high, which in turn has most people just rotating through cars more frequently. I rented a 1970's era house in Japan and that buggah was ready to be torn down, lol. Don't get me into the no insulation or central HVAC.... Though visiting an older traditional style house, that thing was built with nice big thick wood beams and would probably last another 100 years. Japan is such a cool, unique place for sure!

Well the problem with lack of affordable housing in the US is that homes became investments. So i dunno, you can afford a home there. You cant afford one here. You can also afford to rebuild homes there for a reasonable price

In Portugal, in a small city such as mine, building last centuries. Some last millennia. We still use a bridge built by the Romans 2.000+ years ago. Castle is 800 years old. My parents' house is almost 200 years old. All 30 houses from old families (counts/barons/...) are much older than 200 years. Many houses in the center are centuries-old as well. I cannot imagine to live with that 30 years rule!!!

Steel Reinforced Concrete - 47 years. The Useful Lifetime is written into the Japanese Tax Code under its Depreciation Rules. Whilst the structure and interiors depreciate, the land does not. The cheap houses are abandoned houses in the countryside, where the old people have died, but the young people have long ago moved to the big city...

9:55 an entire episode about Japanese joinery sounds really interesting

You missed one of the biggest parts of this equation. There is HEAVY land transfer taxation. Maybe family members refuse to accept homes they inherit specifically because the tax is significant. Similarly corporate ownership of private residence is taxes in other ways like capital gains tax that is in addition to income tax. From my understanding (which is definitely limited) they don't tax private citizens in the same way and often fully exempt up to certain amounts for housing allowances and living costs for average residents. So it costs more as a business to own property than it does as a private resident which helps to curb the mass home buying from institutional investors. In the USA institutional investors in single family home ownership makes up more than 30% of the entire market. In my city of Houston it's nearly 40%.

My son and I went to Japan for ten days about seven years ago. One of many things that really stood out for us was how clean everything was. I don’t think we could have filled a small trash bag with the trash we saw. We were walking on a city street and I noticed all the “maintenance vehicles” (like trash trucks) looked new, but weren’t. Interesting county and people. Oh, and after eating lunch one day in a small town, the old woman at the front used an abacus to total our bill. 😊

This video is very interesting, since from an American-German's perspective living in Germany, US houses are also made rather "flimsy". The thin wooden walls you see in some US homes, where you could kick in the door or even the wall, if you bring enough force, or just crash a motorcycle in it, don't exist in Germany. Also, US houses require a lot of heating since they are only slightly insulated. Of course, that is mostly no problem, since you see such houses more often in regions with higher average temperature. But it does have an impact across the nation, as the houses just aren't built as good as they could be. Also most US houses deteriorate faster than most German houses.

Fun Fact: that one of Japan's most important religious sites 'The Ise Grand Shrine' is a true 'Ship of Theseus'. Every 20 years it's demolished and rebuilt at second site using the exact same layout, type of wood, and ancient techniques. So is it over a thousand years old or is it less then 20? It's more preserved then Roman ruins in a way. Even though the pieces are young the temple is ancient. Honestly, i just love the idea of it.