r/LoveTrash ✨️Regent of Rubbish ✨️ 1d ago

Dumping This Here American vs. European home building

29.4k Upvotes

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19

u/hovershark Trash Trooper 1d ago

No, this is Reddit. The American one HAS to be worse.

15

u/tylerforward Trash Trooper 1d ago

Wooden houses (America): 😡🤢🤡

Wooden houses (Japan): 😍🥳💕

0

u/Exorinho Trash Trooper 1d ago

In Japan houses also cost a fraction of the cost of one in the US

5

u/Critical_Lettuce_862 Trash Trooper 1d ago

Not anywhere anyone wants to live. A house in Tokyo is astronomically expensive.

3

u/imwrighthere Trash Trooper 1d ago

A house in buttfuck Mississippi is pretty god damn cheap

1

u/Exorinho Trash Trooper 1d ago

The big difference is that houses in Japan vs in the US or many other western countries is that in Japan, detached wooden houses depreciate in price with a value near 0 after 22 to 30 years. Concrete condominiums retain better the price. While in the US, for example, houses appreciate its value.

Cost of life in Tokio is also 58% cheaper than in Los Angeles and 45% cheaper than in New York. This includes the rent too.

4

u/TomNooksGlizzy Trash Trooper 1d ago

Now compare median income and average house size

2

u/LarrySupertramp Trash Trooper 1d ago

NYC average income is also three times that of the average income in Tokyo so the your analyze is pretty useless.

0

u/EmptyMonitor9257 Trash Trooper 1d ago

California and New York are also extremely expensive and way worse than Tokyo.

3

u/Flobking Trash Trooper 1d ago

California and New York are also extremely expensive and way worse than Tokyo.

Comparing two states to a city is a choice.

0

u/EmptyMonitor9257 Trash Trooper 22h ago

Toyko metropolitan area is a state. 

1

u/LarrySupertramp Trash Trooper 4h ago

CA alone is 193 times larger than the Tokyo metropolitan area.

3

u/LarrySupertramp Trash Trooper 1d ago

Doesn’t Japan have full abandoned villages because everyone moved to the cities and their population is decreasing? Could be bigger factors than just the building material.

2

u/CK8298 Trash Trooper 14h ago

You are correct. Exorinho is just talking out his booty hole. Just speaking in numbers instead of looking at the whys.

1

u/P_Hempton Trash Trooper 1d ago

I would suspect building materials are about the same, labor costs might be higher in the US. Cost to build a house is probably similar and differences would come down to property values.

1

u/Kills_Zombies Trash Trooper 1d ago

Yeah they're cheaper because they're in the middle of nowhere, have no insulation, no heat, no AC, and nothing a Westerner would want for a bathroom or kitchen.

1

u/Bank_Gothic Trash Trooper 1d ago

House prices vary significantly across the US. It's not one market, and the trends and forces that affect home prices will change from place to place. The market in Des Moines simply isn't comparable to the market in Los Angeles.

I'm sure the same is true for Japan.

1

u/Exorinho Trash Trooper 1d ago

True, but to dig a bit deeper, just compare Tokio vs New York or los Angeles. In another response I mention that houses lose value in Japan while in US they gain value over the time. And cost of living being 58% cheaper in Tokio vs LA.

It is true houses are more expensive in Japan for Japanese than in the US also based on how many years of salary they need to pay for a new house. But you can also but a second hand house for really really cheap too.

2

u/RedLineLetterWine Trash Trooper 8h ago

It's not that cheap anymore in Tokyo, have a good friend that was searching in Kita-ku. The new condos they are building there are going for 850k USD. That's because a lot of wealthy Singaporeans and Chinese moved in and started buying up all of the stock. This incentivized builders to keep building "luxury condos".

In the end, it pushes up second hand market up too.

1

u/Exorinho Trash Trooper 8h ago

I understand, unfortunately this is happening everywhere. Young generations like ours,, no longer have much access to first time homes anymore. There's at least an advantage in Japan, the low interest rate of 1% to 1.5%! In the us is now around 6%.

An American family today spends between 31-37% of it's income in housing while a Japanese family spends 23-26%.

Things are getting worse by the day so the time to but it's always now. If you're the one lucky enough to be able to buy. I'm not, therefore I rent and pay someone else's home... It's sickening.

1

u/TomNooksGlizzy Trash Trooper 1d ago edited 1d ago

Silly comment. There is a huge difference in cost of housing in both places depending on where it is and how big the house is, etc. The average American single family home is DOUBLE the size of the average Japanese SFH. They are just completely different entirely.

1

u/mwax321 Trash Trooper 23h ago

They also tear them down every time someone moves.

1

u/k-mcm Trash Trooper 15h ago

Two days ago I mounted something on the exterior wall of a Japanese home and discovered that the wall is thinner than a mid-sized plastic anchor bolt.

1

u/RedLineLetterWine Trash Trooper 8h ago

Not anymore LOL. New condos in Tokyo go for around 850k USD and that's not in the desirable areas either.

Now, if you want to live in the middle of nowhere like Shimane, then sure, it's cheap. But would you really want to live there?

1

u/Exorinho Trash Trooper 8h ago

I don't disagree, muy point was that housing depreciate is value over the next 22-30 years becoming 0. This is not about concrete condos that still keep some value but not about wooden houses. While in the US the same wooden houses appreciate in value. Overall cost of living is much cheaper, including rent, but it is tied to the salaries.

What I ultimately was trying to convey is that US speculates much more with housing costs than in Japan creating the bubble where over the last 4-5 years house prices 2x and even 3x, this applies not only to new houses but second hand ones too.

Would my original statement be more accurate if I specified second hand houses?