From our other sites
The story
An article about how new-build detached houses in Tokyo’s 23 wards are increasingly averaging close to ¥100 million — dubbed “oku-kodate” (literally “hundred-million-yen houses”) — went viral on 5ch. It points to buyers who’ve given up on condos amid soaring prices, shifting instead to detached houses a bit further from the station. The thread split over whether this price surge will keep climbing or finally stall due to rising interest rates, with one camp pointing to rising land, materials, and labor costs, and the other stressing that higher rates cut into buyers’ borrowing power — both sides trading real-wage statistics and vacant-home projections as ammunition.
In urban areas where land prices keep climbing, people are rediscovering the appeal of detached houses — a bit further from the nearest station, but free from the hassle of close-quarters neighbors. The average price of a new-build detached house in Tokyo’s 23 wards is nearing ¥100 million, and homebuilders are increasingly focused on supplying what’s now called “oku-kodate,” the “hundred-million-yen house.”
Rather than a cramped “narrow-lot house” in a prime location…
A 37-year-old man working for a medical device maker bought a new home in Tokyo in December 2025.
Source: mainichi.jp / Original article here
What people said
A 90-square-meter lot is already plenty "narrow" though
Stuff like floor-area ratio and building-coverage ratio [zoning regs]
In the real estate industry, a "narrow-lot house" means land of 15 tsubo or less — that's about 50 sqm
With a 90 sqm lot you wouldn't normally even build three stories, so calling 90 sqm "narrow" sounds like a rural mindset
Actually, even in the countryside, houses built for nuclear families are usually sized to fit on a 90 sqm lot anyway
Land prices, materials, and labor are all going up, so of course housing prices go up too
If anything, interest rates and housing prices are basically unrelated
That completely ignores market forces.
Sure, costs get passed on to the price,
but bank rates are rising, so buyers' borrowing limits shrink.
That means fewer buyers, so prices are forced to come down.
If you've got the creditworthiness to get a bank mortgage,
interest rates aren't really a problem
"Can't get a mortgage because rates are too high" — that's just the wrong crowd to begin with
So even with rates up, housing prices won't get cheaper
What actually drives housing prices is the cost of land, materials, and labor
You clearly don't understand how the economy works lol
It's generally said that when interest rates are high, property prices fall
Guess the bank's counting on the death insurance payout to collect
Is there even such a thing as a mortgage without death insurance attached?
It'd be a real problem if he doesn't die but ends up bedridden with a chronic illness instead lol
Flat 50 [a 50-year fixed-rate mortgage from Japan's Housing Finance Agency]
You end up paying interest equal to the property price itself, all the way to age 80
Everyone especially said the bubble would burst after the Tokyo Olympics, but the surge actually accelerated once the Olympics ended
In hindsight, whoever bought earliest won, and whoever sat around waiting lost — hard
Whatever the decision, sooner is always better
People waiting for prices to drop tend to forget about all the rent they keep paying in the meantime
2008: Lehman Shock briefly slowed things down
2011: Great East Japan Earthquake — reconstruction kicks off and it speeds back up
2013: Tokyo wins the Olympic bid — accelerates further
2020: COVID, then the Olympics the following year — another jump
Just kept climbing and climbing
Whoever moved before Lehman ended up being completely right
Over the past three years (2023-2026),
regular full-time workers' wages have risen on the back of historic spring wage negotiation (shunto) hikes and regular raises,
by roughly several hundred thousand yen a year on average — about 3-5% (¥10,000-16,000) on a monthly basis
Thanks to this rapid wage growth, full-time workers' average monthly pay keeps hitting record highs
Real wages are cratering though…
Really?
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications' "Family Income and Expenditure Survey" (2025 average), for households with two or more people including a working member, the averages are:
Gross income: ¥653,901/month on average
(combining the household head's salary of roughly ¥470,000 and a spouse's part-time/dual-income earnings of roughly ¥110,000, etc.)
Non-consumption spending: ¥121,493
(taxes, social insurance premiums, and other withheld amounts)
Disposable income (take-home pay): ¥532,408/month on average
(the actual amount free to spend)
Consumption spending (living costs): roughly ¥380,000-390,000
(food, housing, utilities, education, entertainment, etc.)
Surplus (savings potential): roughly ¥140,000-150,000/month on average (about 27-29% of take-home pay)
(goes toward savings, insurance premiums, stock/fund purchases, etc.)
This is a national average, so it includes small and mid-sized companies in rural areas, where a large share of workers are employed
Real wages hit a record 26 straight months of decline — by far the longest streak ever —
and then another 12 straight months of decline on top of that
That's exactly why cost-of-living relief measures are needed — because real wages fell that much???
Do you seriously think they'd roll out inflation relief measures if real wages weren't falling?
Honestly most people are just going off vibes
like "supermarket prices doubled, so inflation doubled and wages got cut in half"
In reality, fixed costs weigh heavily, so even if every item at the supermarket doubled, the overall shift would be pretty small
garbage, late-to-the-party article
Real estate has already peaked
Long-term rates are spiking this hard, so property prices — which are basically a financial asset too — are already falling
New-build tower condos have started falling in some areas, but detached houses are going up because the crowd priced out of tower condos is flowing into them
Still, the average price of new condos in Tokyo topping ¥100 million is just absurd.
And apparently they're still selling too lol
Is there actually some company out there turning real estate into a financial product? lol
So the "average household" is one that can put away ¥140,000-150,000 a month in savings, huh
If you save ¥2 million a year, it'd take 50 years to reach ¥100 million
If you live like that starting at age 20, you'll have ¥100 million by 70
It's just basic math, but you guys talk like it's some crime for old people to have money
That's basically a mattress-stuffing savings account [cash sitting idle, not invested]
My company also fully funds my defined-contribution pension every month,
but if you're not actually investing it,
it ends up working just like a regular bank time deposit
That's exactly the way to do it
Let the city-center properties go to whoever actually needs them
Hot in summer, freezing in winter — sounds like a house that's bad for your health lol
Also at 30 years old, stuff starts breaking down everywhere and you'll be doing repairs every year just to keep living there
Like a pipe inside the wall suddenly cracking and water spraying out
Alright then, point me to a good property among those vacant homes
Prices only fell in inconvenient areas, which drags the average down — in reality, convenient areas keep rising or stay flat
Also, even if land prices fall, building costs sure aren't coming down anymore
There's really nothing left to bring prices down
The "vacant home problem" and "more vacant homes means prices fall" —
people have been chanting that like a mantra since the mid-90s lol
And there's always someone out there who believes it religiously, lol
start pushing "buy now, prices won't drop" — that's exactly when you need to be careful.
Yeah, it's pretty blatant lol
If it doesn't sell, they just bleed out on interest payments
No wonder they're desperate lol
No need to worry.
You can't afford it anyway lol
Background and key points of this discussion
Debates over real estate prices tend to pit the conventional wisdom — “if rates rise, prices fall” — against the view that “land, materials, and labor costs are what’s really pushing prices up, separate from interest rates.” In reality, both forces are at work simultaneously: rising rates reduce buyers’ borrowing capacity and dampen demand, while rising construction costs push up the floor price on the supply side — so neither factor alone tells the whole story. On wages, there’s also room for confusion: nominal monthly pay keeps hitting record highs, while real wages (adjusted for inflation) have stayed negative for a long stretch — the same phrase “wages rose/fell” can refer to two different numbers. And the projection of 9 million vacant homes, or 1 in 3 by 2038, isn’t a direct sign that prices in popular central areas will fall — it mainly reflects a growing divide between city centers and rural or suburban areas.
※This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Breaking News+) thread “‘Even hesitating makes detached houses more expensive’ — what is the popular ‘oku-kodate’ trend in the greater Tokyo area?“
Leave a Reply