July 01, 2017
Real estate lessons from Tokyo?
Are those clever Japs beating us in LOWERED real estate costs too
There is a well informed twitter conversation below that seems to have no formally published equivalent as yet. But it has the basic graphs you need so this might be the first formal treatment of it. You read it here first!
In Australia's capital cities and in London, Beijing and elsewhere, real estate prices have been furiously bidden up recently. Young people have been largely priced out of buying their own homes
But the opposite is happening in Tokyo. Prices are dropping, apartment sizes are getting larger and more people are buying their own homes. And it is capitalism at work. Welfare housing has shrunk. And all that is despite an expanding population in Tokyo.
So how come? Tokyo is reaching for the sky. Apartment buildings are getting taller and taller. That scarcely seems wise in an earthquake-prone island but I suppose "You pays your money and you takes your choice" (as the fairground barker said).
And there is something very encouraging for Australia in that. The same thing is happening in Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne. Apartment buildings there were for many years mostly two-story affairs, sometimes 4. Now a whole host of big 8 and 10 story buildings are springing up. And Australia is geologically stable so that is no problem.
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