Still expensive, but something I actually want now
The house-building saga continues. In part one I explained why we are suddenly looking for a company to build a house for us. In part two I shared our initial quote, an eye-watering 46 million yen.
After writing that post I wasn’t really happy with spending that much money on something I didn’t particularly want. It was too much compromise and not good enough.
Then I read this post by Mark Brierley, which led us to take another look at Ichijo Komuten, and to this quote for the floorplan above:
It is still expensive (keep in mind we are not buying the land, just clearing the existing house and building this new one).
However, it is 4 million yen cheaper than the last quote, and much better quality:
- The solar panels have twice the capacity (10kW instead of 5kW)
- It’s a hiraya (bungalow)
- It has underfloor heating/cooling
- It has a heat exchange ventilation system that controls the humidity
- The walls use foam insulation instead of glass wool
- I loved the design when I saw the model house (it’s modern simple)
- I really like the floorplan we ended up with (the ‘den’ is going to be my writing room, overlooking the deck and the prefectural forest park)
The guy we are dealing with at Ichijo is doing a good job on anchoring us on this. Unfortunately for him, there are three big conditions regardless of how hard he works:
- My in-laws will have to chip in 1/3 of the purchase price (so 14 million if we don’t manage to bargain Ichijo down much)
- My brother-in-law will have to agree to them giving the land to my wife or I, and to them giving us said 14 million
- My mother-in-law will have to agree to get rid of a lot of her stuff, otherwise our modern simple house is just going to be ‘mindless clutter style’
We’re going to stay the night in an i-Smart model house (the same model as we are considering) with my in-laws next month, and then we’re going to have a family meeting with them and my brother-in-law. If all goes really well, we’ll move forward on the project after that.
If it doesn’t work out, we’ll just stay in our manshon 😉
Before signing though I have a couple of problems with Ichijo’s quote:
- When we first met the guy, he said ‘you can build a hiraya for the same price!’, which we were impressed with. Then the third time we met with him he said ‘you only have to pay an extra 20,000 yen per tsubo for a hiraya‘. This is an extra 840,000 yen on the price of the house. I’m going to do my best to hold him to the original statement before signing.
- They charge per tsubo for a lot of things, including the humidity control upgrade for the ventilation system. This seems insane to me. So this machine costs 450,000 yen if we have a small house but 630,000 yen for our house? We’ll be having a chat about that too.
I’m also intending to get an insane amount of detail in the quote before signing. I’ve heard lots of horror stories about people being upsold once they are no longer in a position to negotiate (‘oh, you want stairs? That’s an optional upgrade’).
One thing I was very pleased though is the numbers on this purchase. It seems like it is actually going to be slightly cheaper for us to live in the new house than our current manshon. Check it out:
Current manshon costs
- mortgage 30,000 yen a month (9.9 million @ 0.5% for 30 years)
- manshon fees 20,000 yen a month
- parking space 8,000 yen a month
- electricity bill 10-20,000 yen a month
- gas bill 5-10,000 yen a month
Total montly: 73,000-88,000 a month
Projected house costs
- mortgage 80,000 yen a month (28 million @ 0.6 for 35 years)
- electricity bill -18,000 yen a month (they pay us -monthly average)
Total monthly: 62,000 yen a month
We’ll also make about 3 million when we sell the manshon, which invested for a 3% yield takes a further 7,000 yen off the house monthly, for a monthly cost of about 55,000 yen.
Add in the mortgage tax break and the tax break for having elderly family members living with you, and things look even better.
Now I think we’ll pay more in land tax and various random bits of upkeep, but at least it isn’t as bad as I first thought financially, and of course it will be a far more pleasant place to live.
What do you think of our tentative plan? Are we missing anything? What should I be thinking about?
Nice progress. So, is it accurate to say that although your house will not be a passsivhaus, it’s still going to be reasonably ok in terms of insulation/environment impact?
Looking forward to reading more, in particular the hidden costs.
Shouldn’t your brother in law rightfully ask for some monetary compensation in exchange for your in laws giving the land to you and your wife?
In other news, my family’s still looking for a condo to rent in Tokyo. Our application form has been rejected from two places already, because “no gaijin please” (at least they don’t sugar-coat it). This pisses me off given that 80% of our household is Japanese, and that I’ve been living here for 12 years (except my 2 years stunt in the US)
My friend Mark (link in the post) who is a PassivHaus consultant says that Ichijo is the best of the national chains.
They are not quite at the PassivHaus standard, but are fairly close.
Hello Stockbeard,
I have not posted here before but am an avid reader. I ended up buying a 2nd hand condo purely because of the racism from landlords.
I strongly recommend UR condos. They require NO key money and NO guarantors. They do require a 3 month deposit but are very fair about what they deduct from you when you move out.
Hi SB!
Sorry to hear about your home-search troubles. I had a similar experience here in Sendai when we were looking for a house to live in. I was working full-time in the prefectural office, my wife and three step-kids are all Japanese, but we still got 100% rejected. Ended up having to rent from a friend. One reason a lot of people buy I think.
As for my BIL, there are two reasons why I think not:
1. my BIL and his wife have no children and are pretty wealthy. They own several properties around Japan.
2. my wife takes care of her parents constantly. They are getting frailer and cannot handle hospital visits by themselves, etc. She’s over there several times a week. The reason we are considering this house is so that she can live with them and take care of them 24/7.
Her brother lives in Akita and comes down once a year for a day or two.
He’s welcome to move down here to live with his parents and look after them, in which case we’ll happily renounce any claims to the estate 😀
Hello, I have elderly parents-in-law living in Japan. My father-in-law suggested I rebuild the house and live with them. Now I’m retired from my UK job his proposal sounds interesting but my wife has a sister. Apart from dividing inheritance between siblings what about inheritance tax. If I return to Japan and rebuild the house I would be living with my wife parents-in-law, my wife and possibly my own elderly mother and sister-in-law.
Hi Mark, that sounds like a situation that would also require a fair bit of thought! Have you lived in Japan before?
We built our house and moved in just about a year ago. Two story concrete house in Okinawa. The planning was extremely detailed. Down to the light switches. When we went to the bank for a loan, they told us to borrow two million yen more than we need. If they are like the company we dealt with you should be able to work out ways to bring the costs down but it’s much easier to see the costs rise. Settle all details before you sign the contract. Even if it takes a long time. If you change anything after, it will cost you. And confirm everything. Take pictures of samples and things like that. Then you can say that this is what you agreed to and point at the picture, if they try to fob you off with some crap.
Hi Alan
That is what I feared: will definitely get as much information as possible prior to signing.
Good evening Ben, Yes, I lived in Japan for a couple of years in the early 80’s, working in TEFL. Met my other half during that time. Followed advice from a mentor and returned to the UK, obtained an MA in App Ling intending to return to Japan permanently, but changed career tracks, and stayed in the UK. Have been visiting the in-laws as often as possible ever since . Although I love the UK I am totally addicted to Japanese food and weather, and need the stimulation that Japanese language and culture offer. I am now considering how to move to Japan. I appreciate the positivity of your website
Thanks, Mark. That makes the situation better 🙂
I wouldn’t recommend someone try to retire here without living here for a bit first -would be a big change!
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Totally agree with getting everything sorted before hand, as it can be quite a pain to fix later, although in my case we were lucky as he architect admitted he designs were a bit misleading, and he company covered the bulk of the costs.
Is a tatami room absolutely necessary (with two elderly Japanese people it may be so)? In my experience, any house that has a tatami room – ostensibly there for entertaining guests, it soon becomes the store/clutter/junk room. My (beautifully refurbished second-hand) house does have a tatami room that is our living room, which with two young kids is both a blessing and a curse. It softens any falls the toddler has, but means there are bits of straw everywhere and there are some stains that permanently damage it. Then there is the dani and other insect problems it has. And then, in a few years time, you’ll have to replace them.
Of course, if you don’t use it so often and save it for guests, it’ll last longer, but then you have a large chunk of your lovely new house sitting empty and unused for the vast majority of the time.
We intend to change ours to wooden flooring to match the rest of the house once it gets too bad and the little one is old enough to not need the cushioning.
I’m not sure as I’ve heard conflicting accounts, but I also think it would reduce your costs a bit as it needs special work to put it in.
Not to be macabre, but the other reason you need a tatami room is if someone dies–a place for the body for the first day or few. Tatami rooms are the norm here for that, and it’s an expremely strong one. Older folks that are going to be living with you may have this in mind, but likely unwilling to describe this so directly or clearly.
For this reason, a house without a tatami room could be less sell-able.
Hi CS
Great point!
Thanks, Steve
Personally I don’t really want a tatami room, but as you say my in-laws (and their visiting relatives) do 😉
These will be special thin tatami though (because of the underfloor heating/cooling) and I’m told are easy to replace later…
No experience building a house in Japan, but currently renovating an old one and it seems that builders (工務店) tend to over-charge / make significant profit on not just their labor but also all materials that they use. It seems a good architect can actually bring down costs significantly as they choose the materials and know what their “real” price is (at least that has been my experience so far), so it might be worth getting a quote from an architect who understands the type of house you are trying to build.
Just wanted to ask, what’s the price per sqm for that quote?
Because I was hoping to do something like 120-160m2 passive house in the sticks for 50-60M (excl. land). When I was going through the interviews of the person who built the japan’s second (or was it first?) passive house in Karuizawa, he mentioned at one interview that the building cost was about 2700eur/sqm.
Looks like a great plan.
Since you are building a new house you will have a few years to save up for any upkeep that will come in the future.
As for tax…
I’m not 100% sure, but I think there will be a big one time tax to government in the first year plus lawyer fees, and then from year 2 on, the regular city land tax.
When I bought my house, I was recommended to have ¥200万 to pay for the tax and lawyer and realtor. I found that some realtors didn’t share that info and I have heard stories of people in shock when that tax bill comes in the mail.
Has anyone mentioned this tax to you?
Thanks, Peggy!
Nothing specific about tax yet, but my experience so far is that they put everything in the quote. I’ll make sure to ask about taxes, etc. too 🙂
Whats with the WC (toilet) next to the front door? My place now has that… and my last now that I think of it. So the stinky window with funny sounds coming out of it is RIGHT there for anyone to enjoy. And the best is when the light is on and the doorbell rings and you are the only one home… so you just sit there quiet and wait for them to leave and hope they don’t realize you are taking a BM, or you hurry and wipe your bum and answer the door?
Otherwise the plan looks great!
I see they pay you for the extra power you produce. That’s at 100% efficiency. Solar panels degrade steadily do they not? How long will they last 10-20 years? I have no idea, just wondering if you have looked into that.
Hi Bob
Yeah, with the way the plan is going at the moment, I’m not sure there is a better place for the second toilet.
With the solar panels, I’ve seen articles that say they should last 20-40 years… Guess we’ll see how that works out! I presume by the time they wear out we’ll have a vastly superior alternative to upgrade to 😉
One thing we were very careful to do when building our house 14 years ago was to avoid any builder who calculated an estimate based on cost per tsubo. We insisted on an itemized estimate, which helped us greatly in reducing costs–as we could strike of or change individual items–and knowing what we were paying for. Of course some items, such as flooring, are naturally calculated by area covered, but a heating/cooling system is not such an item. For such items–and the house as a whole–the cost per tsubo should actually decrease as the house increases in size.
That is an excellent point, and makes a lot of sense.
I guess the other side of the argument is that a bespoke solution is going to take a lot more work on our part (making decisions) and other builders may not have the same expertise.
Ichijo claims to have lower costs due to doing a lot of the assembly in their factories in the Philippines.
I guess the thing to do would be to take this process all the way up to the contract, treat it as a learning experience, then look at other options. I’m not in any particular hurry, so we should have time to find the best solution…
The final quote is supposed to be very detailed, so it will give us a baseline to compare to other companies.
What was your total cost/house size in the end?