Quote:
Originally Posted by Nyororin
And... houses in Japan are any different?
They do have to be built to withstand a certain level of earthquake, but as far as the rest... Houses are only built to last one generation here.
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This is an important point. On the whole houses in Japan depreciate in value over time. You'd be lucky if you were able to sell a house and break even. So on the whole people don't want to spend a lot of money on building a house. So you end up with what I consider some really terrible quality houses that certainly don't last and on the whole are incredibly ugly.
When I renovated my house all of our neighbours were somewhat amazed. Renovating is rarely done in Japan. It's normally just demolish and start again. It is a great shame in my opinion. So much architectural heritage has been lost. And one of the main things that struck me about Japan is how ugly most towns are. Very few towns left that are truly beautiful with great heritage houses.