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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
>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.
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
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 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.
Readit News
> Mr. Thursfield and his Japanese-born wife, Chihiro
> The couple have spent about $150,000 on renovations, and there’s more to do
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.
> Mr. Thursfield has done much of the renovation work himself, including woodworking.
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
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I’m trying to figure out if it’s a population thing or a short-lived construction thing.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_in_Japan
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.
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.
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.
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
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Looking at the immigration policies of China and Japan, I think he might be right.
[1]: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/05/19/national/social...
I’m joking, none of that is the individual faults.
It will give you an idea of the prices.
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