[Nyororin]

But still - if you don`t live in Tokyo, it`s suburbs, or in the middle of a big town...
You can have a decent sized home, with a yard, with a driveway/parking area, and all that fun stuff. And no, it doesn`t have to cost so much that it kills you.
Japan is more than just Tokyo, but so many people seem to forget this.

I have a home that is a decent sized (approx 110sq.m / 1200sq. ft with yard about the same size) home, and am actually within bicycle distance of downtown Nagoya. Should we have looked for a place in the same price range a bit further out I could have pulled off equivalent-to-US-sizes without much difficulty.

People always gawk at how tiny houses are in Tokyo, but do you really think that the average income person living in New York City owns a huge house with huge yard of grass and street sized driveway?
Comparing Tokyo housing to the suburban US just seems silly. If that`s fair, then my in-laws have a house twice the size of anything anyone in my family in the US has ever lived in. By at least twice. My mother got LOST in their house when I dragged her here to visit.