The cost of owning a house

[snowdude 44]

Depends how you look at it!

If it is just for storage, no, but as a lot have them as a small room for little children to either sleep / and or play in then it could be considered a living space!

Most if not all lofts in houses here are only about 1-1.5 mtre tall max, so except for small children you can not stand in them so are not practical really except to use as storage.

My daughter wanted a loft after seeing some of the model houses with them in, but we decided against it as she is already 10 and in a year or two at most will no longer be able to make much use of the space, it would then just become storage, so we decided not to bother.

[Go Native 70]

Nice death traps if there's a fire those small lofts.

[RobBright 35]

Nice death traps if there's a fire those small lofts.

 

So is the outback, yet people still live there.

 

If you are going to use a loft for a living space, then they need a permanent staircase, and not a ladder.

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

Is loft space counted as living space?

 

For property tax purposes, it depends on how high the ceiling is. Any space with a ceiling height below something like 1.6 meters (I forget the exact number) does not count towards habitable floor space for property tax purposes. Some building companies even design large between-floor spaces that are below this legal limit, for use as "tax-free" storage space.

[griller 9]

What sort of ¥ does property tax cost?

 

[Go Native 70]

Nice death traps if there's a fire those small lofts.

 

So is the outback, yet people still live there.

 

If you are going to use a loft for a living space, then they need a permanent staircase, and not a ladder.

 

Yeah but how many people adhere to that? In Niseko a whole lot of buildings that were being used as rentals didn't have permanent staircases to the loft space. It had gone on for years but they really started cracking down on it after gaijin started buying up a lot of the places.

[NoFakie 45]

If the builder is calculating build cost per square meter, a loft is living space!

 

If the taxman is calculating the tax on your house, everyone will say a loft is not living space! In fact, I think the done thing is to hide the entrance to the loft until the inspection is over, a bit like Anne Frank. I know three houses where this was done.

 

The problem with lofts for storage is that you really want a wide, unsteep staircase up there for carrying stuff, but a wide, unsteep staircase is costly and will cut into the floorspace on a much more useful level than your loft. As MiJ has just said, for a loft as living space, a staircase is absolutely essential.

 

It costs more to build out than up, but its much nicer if you can minimize stair use, when especially carrying stuff. In Japan the market for s/h houses is so dire that if you build, you're probably going to be there for life. Selling up in twenty years time won't get you the money for a nice bungalow.

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

What sort of ¥ does property tax cost?

 

Depends on the town and how the house is built, but pretty low in general. Maybe around 10-15 man-yen/year for something like what Dumbstick and snowdude are building? (Could be way off, though -- only know what to expect where I live.) Lower for wooden construction, higher for steel frame or concrete construction. There is a big discount the first three years, as well.

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

It's something that Im interested in...within the next couple of years I wanna buy a house.

 

In Hokkaido? I hate you. You're my new best friend!

[NoFakie 45]

Nice death traps if there's a fire those small lofts.

 

So is the outback, yet people still live there.

 

If you are going to use a loft for a living space, then they need a permanent staircase, and not a ladder.

 

Yeah but how many people adhere to that? In Niseko a whole lot of buildings that were being used as rentals didn't have permanent staircases to the loft space. It had gone on for years but they really started cracking down on it after gaijin started buying up a lot of the places.

 

The house I lived in above the garage was from the Bubble era and had two massive lofts, maybe about 30 mats in total. They were both open, so it made heating the rooms below, a bedroom and a room I used as my office, much more difficult. The staircases were both at least 60 degrees, making it a nightmare to get anything up there. I ended up removing one of the staircases because I kept walking into it.

 

If you're going to have a high ceiling, put it in your living room.

[klingon 10]

What exactly is a "loft"? I get a feeling that people might have different meanings.

 

One of my friends has a new house and they have lofts in their bedrooms. They are basically just visible storage areas with a movable ladder to get there, not a place where people would walk around or sleep etc.

[DumbStick 13]

We have seen a fair few "lofts" like this

 

 

Seem to be more storage space than anything else

[Go Native 70]

That's exactly the sort of thing that in Niseko would be considered another area for one or two to sleep.

[DumbStick 13]

actually most without the 'fence' along the top. The ladders you can move

[DumbStick 13]

That's exactly the sort of thing that in Niseko would be considered another area for one or two to sleep.

 

So does that mean tax would be higher because of having those?

[NoFakie 45]

We're planning a building for here in Minamiuonuma and going through the process.

 

Looks like there's two options for the sprinkling water thing. The first is digging a well and have that sprinkle around the front of the house or wherever and also have it circulate up to the roof and melt snow up there. That water is natually warm and they have to dig down 70+ (what I was told) metres. Costs around 1.5-2 million yen but running costs are pretty low. If you do that you won't have much snow building up on the roof/falling off the sides and also don't need as much free space either side for that consideration.

 

The other is to have some kind of big tank that you fill up with water (basically normal water supply) and it pumps up to the roof. It circulates and is reused and so you're not constantly using new water. That water is heated up (?) but can freeze up and be problematic in that way. Obviously cheaper than getting the well thing done, but not as convenient or reliable.

 

As for the whole of the ground floor concrete or not, garage or otherwise. The only rule on this seems to be that the houses must be able to withstand certain strong quakes, not whether the ground floor is made of wood or concrete. Those rules have become much stricter since Chuetsu especially for 3 floor buildings. Seems that concrete is more expensive and won't shake as much. Wood will shake more, but is actually more resistant. There were cases in Kawaguchi town during the Chuetsu jishin when the houses with the first floor concrete 'moved' as one, and took some huge damage. The ones that did not have the ground floor all concrete survived better, apparently.

 

This is all what I have heard talking to various people round here, or should I say what I have understood anyway.

 

There's a name for the ground floor concrete way of building houses here in Niigata: 高床住宅

 

http://www.town.yuza...un_kaisetsu.pdf

 

http://www.pref.niig...3229711334.html

 

I missed this, but thanks. It's very interesting. I would have like to fit our place with underfloor heating using a ground loop (geothermal) but the people I contacted never got back to me. If you bore a well for snow clearing and the equipment is on site, you might as well bore another much shallower well and use it to flush the toilet, wash the car, maybe even the furo. We've got an old well but I only use it to water the lawn. My missus wanted posh toilets and they work off water pressure, not a tank.

 

The whole shape of roof one all depends on if you have space to dump snow and where your neighbours are. You have to look at the whole situation. A lot of visitors give it the ol "why doesn't everyone have a steep roof?" one but there is much more to it than that.

Fwiw, we actually do have a steep roof.

 

It sounds like the older 高床住宅 were treated as two storey buildings and all the structural calculations for earthquake resistance etc. were done on that basis. That's probably why some of them didn't fare so well.

 

Another thing to watch in colder parts of Japan is that concrete walls, slab foundations etc, will stay cold into the rainy season due to their thermal mass. Cold surfaces and high humidity mean lots of condensation.

We had to retrofit our foundations with big electric fans because we had water pooling on the slab. It was so wet we thought it was water leak. Similar condensation in the basement/foundations problems seem very common round here.

[SnowJapan#Andrew 6]

Good idea about the underfloor heating might have to look into that.

 

The roof on our bulding - as the plan is now, always changing! - isn't crazy steep. We're going to get the ido water go up there to the roof and melt the snow as well as sprinklers along the front and side of the building. I think. Luckily, there's fair bit of space either side as well so no real worries about any snow that does come down anyway.

 

We'll have 3 floors and still wondering whether to go 高床住宅 or not. Not mad keen on the concrete slab look myself. And talking to more people I don't see that they fare any better in quakes, if not worse like noted above. If we get a big quake, we're going to shake and get very scared anyway, so it's more about the structure remaining that I'm concerned about.

 

Like others have said though, it's fun planning. In the middle of the seemingly never-ending work to prepare our new website, this has been one little fun diversion keeping me going.

 

One thing I've noticed though. Start off with one price and then you'll add (lets have an ido!) and add (oh, nice kitchen upgrade!) and add (oooh, like the look of that bathroom!), it transforms into an altogether different price tag. Well it has for us anyway.

[muikabochi 208]

Where abouts you going to move to Andrew, if you don't mind me asking?

[SnowJapan#Andrew 6]

Nothing's confirmed yet, still got a few options being looked at, muikabochi.

But hopefully here in the Minamiuonuma valley, not that far from where we live now actually.

Been here over 20 years now, think this is where I want to be.

[muikabochi 208]

Mt Granview would be a prime location!

Can imagine the cost of land in that area though has skyrocketed though.

[DumbStick 13]

.....we have been advised by several banks, as well as consultants that taking out a loan for most of the amount of the house is better as you will have less tax to pay.

 

Spoke to a friend of a friend who is an accountant/tax kind of dude.

 

While he said that taking a loan would indeed reduce your tax bill, ultimately taking all costs and everything into account you will end up shelling out less by buying and owning it 100%.

Obviously if you are able to and have such cash handy!

Which I suppose you should expect, not having to pay nasty bankers cash and associated charges.

I can imagine knowing it's all yours and paid is a good feeling too.

[NoFakie 45]

If you're fitting a metal roof, it doesn't have to be that steep anyway for the snow to slide off. Ours was chosen for the look, not any particular practicality.

 

If you build a house in the West, I think the basic idea is to have a budget and an extra contingency of at least 10% to cover upgrades and alterations and eventualities that can occur once you break ground. Most people spend all of their contingency, if not more.

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

One thing I've noticed though. Start off with one price and then you'll add (lets have an ido!) and add (oh, nice kitchen upgrade!) and add (oooh, like the look of that bathroom!), it transforms into an altogether different price tag. Well it has for us anyway.

 

Yeah, creeping featurism during the design process is a real issue. We were pretty firm about rejecting almost all suggested upgrades, to the point that some of them we now think might have been nice to have. On the other hand, some that we were seriously debating at the time, we are now glad we did not waste the money on. (Bay windows in the living room? Would have been no point now that the living room has devolved to become a glorified dog house.)

 

However, one thing that we do bump up against even now is storage/closet space. Whatever you think you will need, double it. Then double it again.

 

As for internet, we ran Cat 6 connections to every room. I don't trust wireless security, so this has been a good decision so far.

[SnowJapan#Andrew 6]

Interestingly, I think almost everything that has been added has come from us, the company we are going with don't do the pressure sales thing at all.

Which I like a lot. I'm allergic to pushy sales.

[Metabo Oyaji 71]

Oh, our builder wasn't pushy either. But there are always a range of options for everything, so we had to pick and choose which areas were really important to keep the budget from inflating.