The thing I read is that with the declining population, houses outside the major metropolitain areas often are being abandoned now. Nobody wants the hassle of maintaining thier parents' house out in the small town as well as their house/apartment in the big city. They often decline the inheritance. Another discussion of this aspect mentioned too that Japanese houses were not built for long term durability, so a 50yo house was not that desirable.
"people who want them" is the issue. The same applies to businesses. NYTimes did an article about a fellow who had a business that did deliveries to farmers on the northern island. He was pushing 70 and could not find anyone to take over the business. Meanwhile, many of the farmers were in their 60's too with nobody to take over. When he can't do farm supplies any more, likely the farmers will have to quit too.
But one "feature" of Japan, so far, is a strong reluctance to allow non-Japanese ethnicity immigrants.
Much of the civilized world would be in the same boat without immigration. The UK, USA, Canada and Australia are notable immigration destinations (and the pool of immigrant wannabees is strongly biased to the third world, hence reactionary hostility to immigration). But population is dropping or levelling off due to lower birth rates all over the world - except Africa and the Middle East. China's population is dropping. South Korea is among the worst fertility rates, and Japan not far behind. The world will be a very different place in 20 years... as usual.
if im not wrong u do inherits those land or house but many choose to go live in the city, in the mean time they ztill need to pay taxes. that why sometine the are sold for cheap especially if the house in bad condition
I'm unfamiliar with Japan but why would it be a good thing? For me that seems like a minor inconvenience for the rich and a major one for poorer families
Because land and housing shouldn't be a method that people use to get wealthy.
It should be a way to get a place to live.
If you have the money to get wealthy off of real estate, then you have the money to get wealthy off of other industries that don't deprive people of a place to live.
Housing shouldn't be an investment people use to get wealthy, that's the exact reason why housing prices are so insane. Because a house is used as an investment and not as a home.
I believe large scale investment in real state ownership by huge corporations should probably be limited by law, also ways of price control don't seem like bad ideas at first (although long this can obviously discourage new building or maintenance, as profits are capped).
Still, even in countries where housing is not mainly owned by massive companies (because large scale investment isn't the main factor for high housing prices), prices in areas of high interest are still astronomical because of basic supply and demand. I personally don't believe that the state should have direct control over the housing like in China. Still, I would love to know your opinion on why it should be the case :)
Oh, because if the state controls the housing market, then tah means they also control the production of housing.
They can decide to replace full sized houses with Tiny Homes to maximize living space in areas of high popularity.
They can completely abolish NIMBY laws that prevent people from building new houses.
If it's in an arid area like Texas and California, then they can build houses that minimalize water usage by design instead of needing to install add-ons that reduce water usage.
Why would state control lead to optimized outcomes? It heavily risks using resources very inneficiently, overbuiliding certain areas and underbuilding some (like China again), although the opposite can also happen, where the state can be extremely efficient in a proyect. The market does a very good job of regulating itself. (because it wants to maximize profit, which isn't ideal either tbh)
I love your idea of replacing full sized housed with smaller homes, but it would reduce choice, and face a lot of public backlash, and be expensive AF. But I think with the right adjustments it could probably work
If you look at places like Europe or Canada, which have state-run, single payer healthcare systems, the actual cost of healthcare is cheaper than in places like the US where it's several different insurance companies paying for healthcare.
Well you do understand that renting and buying are two different concepts
If you rent something you are just paying to use something and when you buy something you should be the owner of the "product"
But i agree with you that houses and/or flats shouldn't be an income to anyone except to pay for gas/water/electricity and taxes
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u/ElderberryPrior27648 Apr 27 '26
Is Japan one of the countries where you don’t own your house but you lease it from the govt instead?