home buying

[Jack]

A serious Kanto earthquake might make people reconsider high density living and the safety of reclaimed land. Conversely, others think it might spark even more interest in the centre as zoning restrictions would probably be relaxed.

If something like that ever were to happen (a serious Kanto earthquake), sadly I believe the damage to Japan's economy would be so huge in addition to the huge number of people killed, that all discussion about the merits of investing in real estate and in what area becomes academic, moot and irrelevant.

[Mulboyne]

If something like that ever were to happen (a serious Kanto earthquake), sadly I believe the damage to Japan's economy would be so huge in addition to the huge number of people killed, that all discussion about the merits of investing in real estate and in what area becomes academic, moot and irrelevant.

For the survivors of such a natural disaster, the allocation of resources becomes very pressing almost immediately so I'm sure they won't regard the issue as moot and irrelevant. Failure to consider these issues in disaster recovery planning leads to compounded misery further down the line. After a major earthquake in 1991 in Costa Rica, international relief agencies recommended stronger concrete foundations to replace traditional vulnerable housing on stilts. This "stronger housing" proved to be wholly inappropriate for the far more common flooding in the region - which is why housing had traditionally been raised on stilts in the first place. The identical mistake had been made in Guatemala only 15 years before.

[Jack]

Your points are all valid but the thread is about buying a house and value of land in Tokyo. What I am saying but did not make it clear is that under a disaster scenario as you describe, if it were to happen, you would not need to worry about the value of the land you live on. You'd have so many other problems that real estate value would be the last thing in your mind. Anyway, let's get back on track here....

.... buy land only in Tokyo

[Greji]

.... buy land only in Tokyo

Tell that to the fellows from Naniwa, and duck!

[Grumblebum]

Well, my wife and I just finished moving into our new house last week.

We originally purchased a block of land late last year, and looked at various builders, mainly ones who did 'imported' house designs using 2x4 or 2x6 construction. We ended up choosing a lesser well known company for various reasons.

One thing I would say if you aren't already aware - avoid built-to-sell houses (tate-uri). They may seem cheap for the house and land, but there's a reason for that..

We ended up spending a fair bit on the house itself, and it took a while to get finished, but the end product was definitely worth the effort.

My only real advice would be to look at any design you're offered very carefully, and don't be afraid to ask for things to be changed, no matter how radical the changes may be.
Don't assume that what the architect or interior designer suggests is best - think very carefully about what *you* want. In our case the architect was lacking a little in creativity and we ended up figuring out the design of our kitchen and a few other areas ourselves.

[MrUltimateGaijin]

One thing I would say if you aren't already aware - avoid built-to-sell houses (tate-uri). They may seem cheap for the house and land, but there's a reason for that..

which is?

[Greji]

which is?

Shelf life!

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: Builders required to do quake-proof checks on wooden homes before construction starts

The infrastructure ministry, stunned to learn that builders rarely bother to scrutinize architectural blueprints, will require that they do so for all new wooden homes to make sure the structures are quake-proof, officials said. They said builders must study the design plans before construction starts after learning that such procedures are rarely observed these days. The ministry was so shocked at the finding that it decided to rescind an exemption put in place 22 years ago to allow builders to skip such checks. The move comes on the heels of recent disclosures about a Tokyo company that built and sold nearly 700 wooden homes with substandard earthquake resistance, officials said. The scandal was reminiscent of one involving disgraced architect Hidetsugu Aneha, who was found to have falsified quake-resistance data for a large number of apartment complexes and hotels... Even more surprising was a finding by a cooperative association for quake-proof strength on wooden buildings, whose members are mostly medium- and small-sized builders. It said that 62 percent of about 24,000 wooden homes it surveyed were not strong enough to withstand an earthquake even though they were put up in or after 1981, when quake-proof standards were tightened...more...

[Grumblebum]

which is?

Yeah, as gboothe said, shelf life. However, I was more referring to "You get what you pay for". In the case of tate-uri, they're usually built as cheaply as possible while still maintaining a nice shiny fashionable appearance.
In terms of build quality the ones we looked at were all style but very little substance.

Of course, if you don't have any preferences about design details like room layouts, whether the bathroom is on the first floor(what is with that anyway? where is the sense in having the bathroom on a different floor to where the sleeping areas are?), etc, and expect to tear the place down in 10 years, then tate-uri may be the way to go..

[james]

Yeah, as gboothe said, shelf life. However, I was more referring to "You get what you pay for". In the case of tate-uri, they're usually built as cheaply as possible while still maintaining a nice shiny fashionable appearance.
In terms of build quality the ones we looked at were all style but very little substance.

this is exactly the difference i noticed between sekisui and aifuru. the awfuru house of a similar size to the sekisui house at 4000 man was only 2500 man, and their smaller model house was 1250 man.. i just got the feeling that it wouldn't even last the 30 or 35 year mortgage i'd be looking at. and as i said in my original post, i just got very, very bad vibes from the sales office. still hoping to check out a few others on sunday.

so back to my original question - recommended and unrecommended builders.. what's the word?

[Grumblebum]

so back to my original question - recommended and unrecommended builders.. what's the word?

Well, even though we didn't select them, I'd say you wouldn't go far wrong with Sekisui or one of their brands like Sekisui Haimu, assuming they had something which suited you.

I can only really talk about builders who do 'imported' houses, since thats primarily what we looked at. For us, the 3 finalists were Sweden House, Tokyu/Mill Creek, and Kudo Kensetsu/Florence Garden (who we finally chose)
Sweden House are very nice, but pricey, and the salesman got a bit too pushy for our liking. Tokyu/Mill Creek are also very good, and somewhat cheaper than Sweden House - we looked at a couple of their houses while under construction, and it all looked pretty good. The sales people were nicer than the Sweden House ones, and they were pretty accomodating - they really tried hard to get the sale.
The Kudo/Florence Garden builder isn't as big or well known as the others - they don't advertise or do model houses the way the others do, but one of their attractions is that they do designs with North American style basements - what they call 'han-chika' here - and the price/tsubo including basement is not much more than what others charge for above ground.
Most other builders charge a pretty hefty premium for a basement or underground room.
If it hadn't been for the basement, we probably would have gone with Tokyu/Mill Creek. There are several houses by them in our immediate neighbourhood, and they are all pretty nice. One of our direct neighbours house is by Sweden House, and its also a nice one - it was being built at the same time as ours so I saw quite a lot of their work.

[james]

Well, even though we didn't select them, I'd say you wouldn't go far wrong with Sekisui or one of their brands like Sekisui Haimu, assuming they had something which suited you.

i was impressed with their seemingly good quality and attitude and have since then heard generally good things about them. conversely i've heard bad things about awfuru, so it would seem my instincts were right.

I can only really talk about builders who do 'imported' houses, since that's primarily what we looked at...

..but one of their attractions is that they do designs with North American style basements ..

i am also considering this route so thanks for the info. the bit about the basement has also piqued my interest. i'd have to see how much it adds to the property taxes.

Tokyu/Mill Creek. There are several houses by them in our immediate neighbourhood, and they are all pretty nice.

do these houses have central heating? i've certainly learned to live without it (going on 8 years in this house) but it gets quite cold here. -14c some nights with the indoor temp hovering around 4c. i guess with proper insulation and double-paned windows it might not be so bad.

how long have most of these houses been there? are there any going on for 10 or more years? i'm curious to know how they're holding up.

we'll be out again today looking at a couple more builders here. should be interesting.

[dimwit]

Have you looked at Canadian built houses?

There are several sites like this.
http://www.westcanadahomes.com/

Often they have better insulantion. I've heard central heating is possible but very expensive both terms installation and operation.

[Grumblebum]

i am also considering this route so thanks for the info. the bit about the basement has also piqued my interest. i'd have to see how much it adds to the property taxes.

Thats a good question - one of the reasons we went for a basement is because anything below ground level isn't counted in the floorspace calculations for how large a house you're allowed to build. For our land, the conditions are 40% land footprint, 80% overall floorspace (not sure what the correct terms are) as a percentage of the land size.
What it meant is that we could build a house with 30% more floorspace than would have been otherwise possible on our land.
I'm not sure if property tax is calculated the same way, but I hope so...

do these houses have central heating? i've certainly learned to live without it (going on 8 years in this house) but it gets quite cold here. -14c some nights with the indoor temp hovering around 4c. i guess with proper insulation and double-paned windows it might not be so bad.

They offer a full central airconditioning system which will heat as well. This was also one of the reasons we liked Mill Creek. However, all the designs we looked at were 2x4 or 2x6 construction with full insulation and double pane windows, so we weren't too worried about it. Our house is 2x6 which means the walls are pretty thick. Also, the basement is very cool - seems to maintain a temperature in the mid 20s. Hopefully it won't change much in Winter.

how long have most of these houses been there? are there any going on for 10 or more years? i'm curious to know how they're holding up.

Most of the ones we've seen have only been up less than a year. However, when we were looking at Mill Creek stuff the sales guy took us to a place which had been up for about 3 years, so we could talk to the owners and get their feedback. Their place had central aircon, and they were pretty pleased with it overall. No serious complaints.
You might want to give Mill Creek a look. The model house place we went to was the one at Daikanyama in Tokyo. Most of the larger companies have model houses there.

[Mulboyne]

[japanguy]

Well we live in the countryside in Hyogo pref. and we are able to purchase a big piece of land really really cheap. It is 2000 square meters and we paid about 4000yen per square meter. It not in the mountains but about 1 kilo from the sea. So we are planning to have a nice lawn and garden.

As for our house we are building a home by Selcohome. They sell homes imported from Canada. They use 2x6 in the exterior walls and 2x10 in the floors. They give you solid oak or ash flooring on the first floor. The second floor is carpet standard but the local franchisee allowed us to put pine in the second floor(or the regular laminated flooring). They offer a fairly good basic package, but you can upgrade things as you like. Better roofing, sidings, floors, trim, wallpaper. So far the framing, roofing, and wiring are finished and I have been impressed with the construction. The use hurricane tie downs on the roof, steel strap the all around the foundation and between floors. The have vented roofs too. The windows are all double pane vinyl windows with gas between the panes to further insulate. The insulation is great: R28 floor, R20 wall, and R30 in ceiling. The also put R12 and sound baffles between the interior floors to damper the sound.

I have been happy with them so far. I have also talked to many current home owner that are very happy with them. They have been in business for over 10 years and have sold over 10,000 homes in Japan.

Here is a link to there homepage http://selcohome.com
And here is a link to my home in progress http://homepage.mac.com/morishitasteve/PhotoAlbum73.html

As for auifuru I too got the same bad feeling about them. They looked nice but felt cheap. And they do not put plywood over the house framing. They just put the house wrap right on the framing. I once saw one the their houses under construction at night. They were working late with the lights on and the whole thing was glowing right through through the walls.

[Big Booger]

Well we live in the countryside in Hyogo pref. and we are able to purchase a big piece of land really really cheap. It is 2000 square meters and we paid about 4000yen per square meter. It not in the mountains but about 1 kilo from the sea. So we are planning to have a nice lawn and garden.

As for our house we are building a home by Selcohome. They sell homes imported from Canada. They use 2x6 in the exterior walls and 2x10 in the floors. They give you solid oak or ash flooring on the first floor. The second floor is carpet standard but the local franchisee allowed us to put pine in the second floor(or the regular laminated flooring). They offer a fairly good basic package, but you can upgrade things as you like. Better roofing, sidings, floors, trim, wallpaper. So far the framing, roofing, and wiring are finished and I have been impressed with the construction. The use hurricane tie downs on the roof, steel strap the all around the foundation and between floors. The have vented roofs too. The windows are all double pane vinyl windows with gas between the panes to further insulate. The insulation is great: R28 floor, R20 wall, and R30 in ceiling. The also put R12 and sound baffles between the interior floors to damper the sound.

I have been happy with them so far. I have also talked to many current home owner that are very happy with them. They have been in business for over 10 years and have sold over 10,000 homes in Japan.

Here is a link to there homepage http://selcohome.com
And here is a link to my home in progress http://homepage.mac.com/morishitasteve/PhotoAlbum73.html

As for auifuru I too got the same bad feeling about them. They looked nice but felt cheap. And they do not put plywood over the house framing. They just put the house wrap right on the framing. I once saw one the their houses under construction at night. They were working late with the lights on and the whole thing was glowing right through through the walls.

Just wondering but what did you get the home built for at selcohome? If you don't want to answer that I'll understand. I and my wife are in Hyogo too and we've recently looked at land and were thinking of building but we also have been looking the auction route too. Just trying to get an estimate of the price difference between the two and what you get for the price.

[Blah Pete]

Japanguy,

Nice pics! The house looks really big.

[Behan]

My wife and I wanted to build with Selcohome, too. Sturdier frames, using 2x6, etc. They also would have put in ventilation units in the walls to get out the humidity to stop rotting. Their houses look really nice.
But the Selco salesman who put in our application for the loan wrote me down as hijokin worker (for Nova) so I couldn't get on the loan and thus the bank rejected us.
At the place we ended up buying a 'used' house from, the sales woman put me down as a regular employee. The bank didn't seem to care at all.
Apparently, you have to be employed at the same company for five years to have a chance at getting a loan, or something like that.

[james]

[james]

thanks to all for links and comments! looking forward to checking out some of the links to canadian import builders.

have checked out a few more j-builders. went to a place done by ichijyo and i'd rank them in the same class as sekisui. both builders seem focused on quality, meeting the customer's wishes and flexibility. no pressure or herding into a sales office to ask pointed financial questions. if we go with a j-builder it'll likely be sekisui. they seemed to have no problem with things we wanted to do, like an ensuite bathroom to the master bedroom, a second bathroom for the boys upstairs and then just a toilet / sink type deal downstairs.

also checked out a place called tamahome.. they seemed ok. they didn't strike me as particularly good, but not particularly bad either. same target market maybe as awfuru but perhaps have their shit together a bit better. they gave us some calpis, a 5kg bag of rice, some tissue and a nice fan

Well we live in the countryside in Hyogo pref. and we are
..
I have been happy with them so far. I have also talked to many current home owner that are very happy with them. They have been in business for over 10 years and have sold over 10,000 homes in Japan.

saw your pics, very nice! i originally thought i might not be too far from you but i see after looking at more of your pages you are on awaji island. not sure how feasible it'd be for me to get out there, but would you be game for showing the place to a fellow fg and potential homebuyer?

As for auifuru I too got the same bad feeling about them.
They looked nice but felt cheap.

exactly the feeling i got, and the sales guy was just sleazy.

i'm lucky in one respect - getting financing here with the local JA bank shouldn't be a problem. they know me now, i've established credit with them and i got my pr this year.

[Charles]

[james]

i'm not looking at this purchase as a financial investment. far, far from it. it's a personal investment into my continued mental well-being.

[Tommybar]

Hum...

Ever think of using a straight up carpenter instead of some big company? I had a friend who had a carpenter build 3 of his homes (his mother's, his brother's, and his wife's). His wife's has a basement and is 2.5 stories. But the house is registered as a 2 story home. The attic was converted after the inspection and the basement entrance was covered with temporary flooring (which is listed as a closet) which was removed and hand rails added. (Some other things were done down there too, but I have no idea.)

All windows are double plated by TFC and the house had some strange tubing in the walls that lead to all the rooms so all rooms where the same temperature using one heating/cooling unit which was located in the dinning room. Does not matter if it is summer or winter, the house is always the same temperature. In fact, there was no difference in temperature from 2 meters, 1 meter, and 0 meters in each of the rooms (I think this system is also TFC).

He imported the Philippine mahogany flooring, Canadian lumber, U.S. doors and locks, and wallpaper from China and Europe. He wrote down what he wanted, the carpenter showed him what would be best, and he built it.

[james]

Hum...

Ever think of using a straight up carpenter instead of some big company?

this is a good idea and something that got mentioned, though perhaps not given enough consideration. definitely interesting how your friend chose what he wanted from where in the way of materials. did he make any mention on how involved it was do to so?

[Tommybar]

He had been planning on buying a home for quite awhile. He had already built his brother's house and his mother's house. So he had quite a good idea of what he wanted.

He was quite involved in it. He inspected all stages of construction and of course had many meetings with the carpenter before anything was started. His wife took care of most of the interior aspects of it.

[flotsam]

so any idea how i can get one of them houses? here's the basic situation. i've got a decent income which i spend on booze, whores and herbs. i also have this rather ingenious contract with citibank whereby i pay them money each month to do absolutely nothing! everytime i ask a bank for a loan they want 20% fucking deposit. add all the fees to this and it comes to about 40% of the house price. at the rate i'm going i might be able to afford a small beach shack in the early 3330's. is everyone here just fucking rich or can a normal bloke get a leg over somehow? i went to a housing centre the other week and spoke to one of the avuncular salesmen, telling him my basic needs, a car park, a door, a window, a couple of walls, an indoor toilet and a place to keep my budgies and he told me, no kidding, i'd be up for a million bucks. how much have you got in savings he asks me, as i sit there crumpling into my hawaiian shirt. i check my wallet. "3,000 yen, sir." i say. he threw the catalogue at me on the way out. cunt.

[Jack]

so any idea how i can get one of them houses? here's the basic situation. i've got a decent income which i spend on booze, whores and herbs. i also have this rather ingenious contract with citibank whereby i pay them money each month to do absolutely nothing! everytime i ask a bank for a loan they want 20% fucking deposit. add all the fees to this and it comes to about 40% of the house price. at the rate i'm going i might be able to afford a small beach shack in the early 3330's. is everyone here just fucking rich or can a normal bloke get a leg over somehow? i went to a housing centre the other week and spoke to one of the avuncular salesmen, telling him my basic needs, a car park, a door, a window, a couple of walls, an indoor toilet and a place to keep my budgies and he told me, no kidding, i'd be up for a million bucks. how much have you got in savings he asks me, as i sit there crumpling into my hawaiian shirt. i check my wallet. "3,000 yen, sir." i say. he threw the catalogue at me on the way out. cunt.

Well, I can picture someone doing what you did and I can see how he would get insulted. There is a polite way of telling you have no savings. But checking in your wallet like that and telling him 3,000 yen I would have also thrown the catalogue but to your face, not just AT you.

By the way, you live in Japan? How come you have to pay for whores? Pussy is everyone ready for the taking.

[flotsam]

so you think the aviary was too much?

[Buraku]

this is exactly the difference i noticed between sekisui and aifuru. the awfuru house of a similar size to the sekisui house at 4000 man was only 2500 man, and their smaller model house was 1250 man.. i just got the feeling that it wouldn't even last the 30 or 35 year mortgage i'd be looking at. and as i said in my original post, i just got very, very bad vibes from the sales office. still hoping to check out a few others on sunday.

so back to my original question - recommended and unrecommended builders.. what's the word?

I found that chart I needed a few days ago, it had a bit on housing prices

HOUSE PRICE

Good priced homes to be found in Mexico, New Zealand, the Philippines, and Australia,
the US, Japan and the majority of Europe are really fucking expensive

and the difference between an expensive home in the States and Japan ?
The one you buy in the USA looks like an expensive house
The one you buy in Japan looks like an overpriced dog-kennel