Main problem with any Japanese house is not a kitchen, it is insulation. It is an elephant in the room no one seem to talk about in this thread.captainspoke wrote: ↑Wed Feb 23, 2022 10:43 amI disagree. @Bubblegun--reread my post on the first page. We didn't think we were smarter, we just thought a house would be nice. We had only the faintest glimmer that it was old enough that we were only buying it for the price of the land. We hadn't even looked at many places, and this one just seemed good enough. Price, rather than condition, was the major factor.Ori wrote: ↑Wed Feb 23, 2022 5:28 amAround 0-5 yrs I'd say.
Many foreigners (including myself) start house hunting thinking that they are smarter than "stupid" Japanese and will make a great deal buying a 15-25 yrs old house for a price of a land and will have a comfortable life there. Well, Japanese are not stupid and prefer new houses for a simple reason that typical Japanese house is not build to last and furthermore, Japanese building standards (particularly, insulation) were much worse in the past (and are still not great).
Also, that's when stuff around the house, like water heater starts breaking, roof and wall maintenance are needed etc. Often, buying a prefab house or building an inexpensive custom house is a better deal.
We've thought about moving, or rather I have. The main problem with most any house I look at is the kitchens--and this is especially true with any new house on the market. It's depressing--houses that might be acceptable in most other ways have kitchens that look like they were designed/laid out by someone who has never cooked, let alone spent any time in one.
A kitchen should be "U" shaped--and the sink, the stove, and the refrigerator should form a triangle--and no two of them should be in a line. One common fault of pre-made (new) houses is a giant sink (wow!) and almost no counter space to prep anything. https://i.imgur.com/lrdlWXA.jpg <--To get that kind of kitchen in a new house, it'd have to be architect-designed, and even if they understood and got it right (ha!), the budget would be creaking and about to break. And that's a kitchen in a 55-year old house. (It should have been a deep bay window, more shelf space, instead of what's there.)
One positive I see is that your wife seems okay with an older house. One negative, is that you don't have any DIY background. But youtube is your friend, a great resource.
Japanese houses are super cold at winter. Yes, one can install all kind of heaters everywhere, but it would be very expensive to heat up the whole house, not only a living room and a bedroom. The hallways, toilets, bathroom are freezing. The air is dry (yes, one can turn on humidifier and then fight condensation and mold on the windows).
Nowadays they are building so called 高気密高断熱 - high insulation high air-tightness - houses, which are much more pleasant to live in. And they are not much more expensive than regular houses, or could be even cheaper, if go through a koumuten or Ichijo.
Another problem with Japanese houses is their love of sliding doors everywhere. This is a f...g nightmare. They make so much noise which spreads through the wooden floors and walls, that it is impossible to open a door at night without waking up someone.
If buying used I would say look for 高気密高断熱 (but there are very few of them on the market) or have a full understanding of what are you getting into.
