On Apr. 14, about 2,000 residents of Iwakuni, a city in northern Japan that hosts an U.S. Air Force base, demonstrated against a proposed new housing development for American soldiers. In line with a major shift of military personnel, Iwakuni would be receiving about 4,000 soldiers and their families from other bases in Japan, mainly Atsugi. Iwakuni City wants to build about 10,000 new units for these arrivals on Atago mountain, which is mainly why the citizens protested. Atago has cultural and even sacred significance for local people. However, the reasons for choosing Atago go back further than the base issue. Read More

Prime Minister Taro Aso has promised the rest of the world that he will do his best to stimulate Japan’s economy, and one of the ways he plans to do so in the next supplemental budget (¥15 trillion, the highest on record) is to provide a tax exemption for monetary gifts from parents to their children.

Of course, there’s a catch. In order to qualify for the tax exemption, the gift has to be used to either purchase a home or remodel a home. Basically, the idea is that there is some ¥1,400 quadrillion that is not circulating in Japan, but rather just sitting in people’s back accounts or in their mattresses (or, to put in Japanese terms, in the tansu, or wardrobe). About half of this dormant money is in the possession of Japan’s elderly. Normally, when these people die, the money goes to their offspring, who, in turn, just put it into their own back accounts or in their own wardrobes. Since people live quite long in Japan, their children usually are already settled with their own homes when they die. Aso’s scheme is to persuade these older people to give some of their money to their kids (or grandkids) earlier, at the time when they are thinking of buying a home.

The budget has to be passed before this goes into law, and the opposition says it basically subsidizes the rich. But it is sort of half-assed anyway, since the maximum gift that can be tax exempt is ¥6.1 million, and it costs at least ¥20 million to build a halfway decent house in Japan.

According to the weekly magazine Aera, there are now about 7 million vacant housing units in Japan. That includes both condominiums and single-family homes, but not rental units. This number is apparently increasing at the same time that developers are busy building more new houses and condos. Many of these empty houses are for sale and many are not, but in any event the magazine predicts that both vacant houses and new houses will increase in a kind of weird lockstep. Read More

There are several grades of public housing in Japan. Most are really no different in terms of rent and quality from commercial housing, but local governments also provide low-rent public housing to people with low incomes. Obviously, getting into a low-rent public apartment unit is difficult: the criteria is strict and the waiting list usually long. However, once you’re in you’re in for good, regardless of any change in income over the years. This has something to do with Japanese housing laws, which, as explained elsewhere in this blog, make it very difficult for landlords and authorities to kick somebody out of a rental unit, even if they are delinquent in their payments. However, as shown by a recent case in Aichi Prefecture, it also has to do with the basic laziness of public officials.

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