Month: December 2012

Something to think about (2)

Posted on by catforehead

Sakura city office

Sakura city office

In the weeks since we visited the house in Usui we have, indeed, thought a lot about it, and our interest has blown hot and cold. Though we like the layout and the unblocked view to the south, we’re still not sold on the location. Keisei Usui Station is 20-25 minutes away on foot, and the train takes about an hour and fifteen minutes to get to central Tokyo. It’s considerably cheaper than the Hokuso Line, which we use now, and there are more trains per hour, but the Hokuso Line gets directly to the heart of Tokyo in about an hour and is never very crowded, even during rush hour. And it only takes us about 7 minutes to get from our front door to the platform. Of course, the train isn’t a monumental consideration since neither of us goes into Tokyo more than twice a week. Then there’s Usui itself, which as a bedroom town is older than Inzai and experienced the kind of suburban sprawl that plagued most Tokyo bedroom towns developed in the 60s and 70s, while Inzai was better planned and has more parks and open spaces. That said, Inzai is also somewhat antiseptic and lacks the kind of character older Japanese communities offer. Usui was incorporated into the larger city of Sakura some years ago and Sakura is one of the great castle towns of the Kanto region. Parts of it are quite beautiful and well-preserved, it’s just that those parts are not in Usui.

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Comeback

Posted on by catforehead

housestocks13Last week Tokyo Shimbun published a brief piece about possible good stock picks for next year, and it seems most analysts in Japan are saying that anything related to housing is a good bet. “It’s one of the few industrial sectors with promise,” said one. The main reason, as we’ve already mentioned in our other blog, is the consumption tax hike. It’s assumed that many people who are considering buying a home will want to beat the rise in the rate, which means they will have to sign a contract for the home sometime in 2013 since the rate will go up from 5 to 8 percent on April 1, 2014, so the completed house or condo has to be “transferred” (hikiwatashi) to the buyer before that date if the buyer wants to avoid the higher tax. Consequently, a lot of people will be trying to buy a home at the last minute. (Land sales are exempt from the consumption tax)

According a construction research laboratory attached to the land ministry (obviously an amakudari outfit), the number of new homes that will be built in 2013 will exceed 921,000, the first time the 900,000 mark has been breached in five years, representing a 5.2 percent increase over this year. Consequently, two other economic research centers, Nissei’s and Daiichi Seimei’s, project investment growth in the housing sector to grow by 10.8 percent and 11.4 percent, respectively. Two-digit growth in any sector is considered really, really good in this economy, and should benefit everyone from house manufacturers and condominium developers to realtors, lighting equipment makers, and construction material suppliers. The big house manufacturers like Pana Home, Daiwa House, Sekisui Heim, and Asahi Kasei (Hebel Haus), will rake in the most because they can respond to mass orders more quickly and thus help those last-minute buyers get their place built before the tax deadline.

It should be noted that this only applies to new homes, since the consumption tax is only levied on companies that make more than a certain amount of money. For the most part used homes don’t apply since most of them are transactions between individuals with realtors simply acting as go-betweens–which means you pay the tax on their fee, but not on the price of the house or condo itself. So, again, there won’t be much stimulus for the used housing market.