Buying a house/apartment which is already 30+ years old?

[Deep Blue]

Interesting comments being made but it’s not clear that all of them are based on personal experience.

Yep, like the one below... the discussion is talking about buying a house 30+ years old, not building one from new.

More importantly, the brand new house we built so lovingly depreciated to zero leaving land only value over 30 years.

Unlike this comment, I did actually buy a house 30+ years old - it was 33 years old when I bought it and now 42 years old. No regrets and the value has appreciated quite a lot since purchase (house was worth zero at purchase, still worth zero but the land is worth about a third more now). Just a bonus as I bought as a home rather than an investment.

And the worst neighbors were definitely those with the house. Everyone knew everyone’s business and most disliked some other neighbor or two. Conversely, we now share our space with 21 other condos where people greet each other but otherwise deliberately maintain distance. It makes for far more pleasant surroundings.

Obviously good or bad neighbours are the luck of the draw... but I would prefer to have bad neighbours in a house physically separate from mine than bad neighbours who share walls, plumbing and communal areas with me. One of the best things about living in a house is never hearing my neighbours move their furniture around, fight, have children running around screaming etc. And not having to worry about the neighbours complaining about my children or vaccuming at the "wrong time". Not something I could honestly say for any condo block I lived in over the previous twenty years.

Anyway, swings and roundabouts - pro's and con's to both and everyone can make their own decisions but I just wanted to address the "not based on personal experience" jibe. All I can say is I won't go back to manshons again.

[captainspoke]

I'm hopefully not repeating myself too much...

Similar to the above, our place was ~25yrs old when we bought it, and that was in '89 (so let's see, ...34yrs ago, plus ~25, makes it 59 going on 60 yrs old). Paid off quickly, and one analogy I've used is that it's like we went to a community college and then to a public uni, rather than taking out loans and going ivy league.

Yes, we had the kitchen reformed after 7-8yrs, and I've done some other work myself. We've had some windows replaced. A new water heater once. We had the bath re-tiled but kept the same tub. Same original roof and outer siding.

Cons: Yes, it could heat better. There are stairs, and being older now it'd be nice to be all on one floor. I'm not sure how fast or well it might sell, if we put it on the market.

Pros: Free parking (we've always had two cars, and can fit 4 or even 5 in a pinch). We can change anything about it without asking anyone for approval. With our kids now gone and the two of us retired, the wife and I have had extra rooms (not just extra room) to expand into and use. We've never had a neighbor problem, actually empty houses on two sides. Wife plays shamisen and practices at home--probably not possible in a condo--and I do turn up the music and blast out now and then (never a problem). And we have a piano. We had a dog for 14yrs, and never had to ask or worry about anyone's approval. Property tax is so cheap as to be trivial, now ~¥50k/yr. We can BBQ/grill meat in back (or in front), and when the kids were small we had various pools set up for them and their friends to play in.

*

In a condo we could now get along with one car (but not when we were working in two different directions and with different schedules). When I do look at condos, parking is extra, and depends on location. So maybe ¥5k/month at the cheapest, maybe ¥15k/month if expensive. Figured at it's cheapest, at ¥10k/month over 10yrs and that's ¥1.2M that we haven't had to pay (and we've been here close to 35yrs now, so ¥4.2M).

Similar with maintenance/management fee. The house has not been all that much, whereas with a condo we might have been dropping ¥20k+/month over the years. Which again, mounts up -- 35yrs * 20k/month = ¥8.4M. (And condos do sometimes have extra assessments, for special projects/needs.)

I'm sure that money saved on parking and monthly fees has easily covered any extra we might spend on heating, besides any other expenses there have been.

[Deep Blue]

I don’t know if you have already done this, but to save on energy costs, infill secondary glazing helps a lot and there are various Government schemes that will massively subsidize the cost at the moment. We just did ours a few weeks ago and got subsidies from the national Government, Tokyo metropolitan Government and Shibuya-ku too. Total cost for 16 windows and French style sliding doors to the garden was 1.9 million yen and we expect to recoup about 1.2 million of that.

[captainspoke]

...but to save on energy costs, infill secondary glazing ...

Yeah, this has been suggested and discussed in the past, my solution is in the link below--note the windows themselves are double-glazed already, the plastic makes for a, 8-10cm barrier before the glass, 100% airtight seal. And for this room, the other three sides are interior walls.

https://www.retirejapan.com/forum/viewt ... ion#p19314

[Deep Blue]

No worries, just sharing about the subsidies in case it is useful to anyone. I had always held off as it is a serious cost for 4 large bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and large lounge/dining room with big glass doors to the garden.... even with lower heating/air con bills the payoff period was far too long. But with the subsidy programs this was cut to about 3-4 years so we decided to pull the trigger. Our existing windows were single pane and when the wind blew, the curtains moved..... so thermal insulation was more of an idea than a reality.