Selling old house - better to tear down?

[Gulliver]

Anyone had experience with selling an approximately 25 year old house (30 train minute commute to Tokyo)? Do you come out on top financially and tax-wise if you tear down the house and sell or leave it intact?

[N00bster]

I don't have the answer to your question, but may be interested as a buyer depending on the location and size of the land.

I tried to contact you privately but you seem to have deactivated private messages.

[captainspoke]

Our house was over 25 when we bought it--and that was over 30 years ago.

[Moneymatters]

No experience yet. But be careful as, you don't know what you've got til it's gone.

Land zoned for residential property with no house have high property Tax i believe.
I think the land tax will be 6 times the usual amount.(This is for land under 200 square metres).
And you'll be paying this increased amount for as long as it takes to sell. Outside popular areas you can see plots of land up for sale for years.

This is possibly another reason why you see those dilapidated houses all over which are probably technically "for sale".
Or they knock them down and; put up a parking lot (oh bop bop bop) to help cover the increased taxes.
Obviously, setting up the land for parking isn't something you can switch on/off like a light switch.

If you are sure the property is unliveable then either you or the buyer will need to absorb the cost to remove it.
This varies on property size, presence of asbestos, foundation depth, etc. but just an average house could be over 2mil. You can easily get a quote for that.
Then simply inflate the sale price by that amount in preparation for the buyer asking for a reduction to cover the costs of removing the house. But they'll be aniticipating that and ask for an additional reduction above. It's a game.

If it were me, I'd ask a real estate agent if they think the house would be attractive to someone prepared to spend 10mil on reforming it. That strengthens the argument for at least initially listing it with the property intact. 25 year old houses, if still structurally sound, should last a lot longer.

And no. Sadly no prizes for spotting the Joni Mitchell classic.

[Gulliver]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like the best strategy is to keep the house just in case it doesn’t sell or somebody is interested in reforming it.

I definitely would not want to live in it, as is. It’s one of those suburban cracker box tract houses with insufficient insulation, rusty pipes, and built with the cheapest materials available at the time. Also, roof has never had maintenance.

Does anybody know the reason undeveloped land is assessed so high here? I wonder if there’s an exception if you plant a garden on it?

Sorry @N00bster we are still in the process of deciding what to do with the property, (maybe a parking lot ) so any kind of sale is probably a few years off.

[TJKansai]

Thanks for the info. Sounds like the best strategy is to keep the house just in case it doesn’t sell or somebody is interested in reforming it.

I definitely would not want to live in it, as is. It’s one of those suburban cracker box tract houses with insufficient insulation, rusty pipes, and built with the cheapest materials available at the time. Also, roof has never had maintenance.

Does anybody know the reason undeveloped land is assessed so high here? I wonder if there’s an exception if you plant a garden on it?

Sorry @N00bster we are still in the process of deciding what to do with the property, (maybe a parking lot ) so any kind of sale is probably a few years off.

We inherited the neighboring plot and kept it as a garden/parking/basketball court. I am not sure, but I think it is costing about ¥200,000 a year in taxes.