There’s a real simple reason why Japan has reasonable housing costs. Demographics and immigration policy. When you do what we did, open the border and flood the country with tens of millions of immigrants, you create the very problem we have. This isn’t hard or complicated.
> Japan’s low birthrates and restrictive immigration policies mean its population has been shrinking for decades, which has left about 10 million homes vacant across the country. That falling demand, of course, means lower home prices and rents. At the same time, the country’s population is becoming even more concentrated in its big cities. Many small towns and villages are at risk of becoming abandoned ghost towns.
Houses aren’t an investment. They lose value year after year. They prefer new homes, better earthquake technology, usually why homes are demolished after 25-30 years and old historical ones are harder and harder to come by(they exist but are fewer and fewer) or exist in areas that are far from where jobs are.
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More on this subject from other reputable sources:
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– ABC (B): [Government social housing fund green-lights first grants but Help To Buy scheme set to fail](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-09-15/social-housing-fund-issues-first-grants/104353854)
– Irish Independent (C+): [Why the next government can’t afford to allow housing momentum to slip](https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/why-the-next-government-cant-afford-to-allow-housing-momentum-to-slip/a524558797.html)
– News.com.au (B): [‘Pathetic’: Albo lashed as housing fight looms](https://www.news.com.au/finance/real-estate/buying/greens-demand-labor-negotiate-as-major-housing-bills-face-the-senate/news-story/9e01f6782cbf08b0d0f265f8069d1cd7)
– Times Colonist (A-): [Saanich speeds up construction of non-market-price housing](https://www.timescolonist.com/local-news/saanich-speeds-up-construction-of-non-market-price-housing-9522791)
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There’s a real simple reason why Japan has reasonable housing costs. Demographics and immigration policy. When you do what we did, open the border and flood the country with tens of millions of immigrants, you create the very problem we have. This isn’t hard or complicated.
> Japan’s low birthrates and restrictive immigration policies mean its population has been shrinking for decades, which has left about 10 million homes vacant across the country. That falling demand, of course, means lower home prices and rents. At the same time, the country’s population is becoming even more concentrated in its big cities. Many small towns and villages are at risk of becoming abandoned ghost towns.
Houses aren’t an investment. They lose value year after year. They prefer new homes, better earthquake technology, usually why homes are demolished after 25-30 years and old historical ones are harder and harder to come by(they exist but are fewer and fewer) or exist in areas that are far from where jobs are.