Japan doesn't have a housing crisis. I'm in a great location in Tokyo, the rent is under $750/month, and it's been the same for the decade+ I've been in this specific place.
If there's a problem, it's too many empty homes in aging rural areas. Cities are doing just fine, even with a growing population in Tokyo.
It didn't. But it's entering one now.
New apartment prices in Tokyo are double what they were a few years ago. [1] The reason is foreign investors buying up loads of properties and sitting on them or turning them into AirBNBs. Locals can't afford them because wages aren't increasing. The concept of buying a property to resell it also isn't a thing amongst locals, so it's clueless rich people and corporations buying up properties and thinking they can flip them, which won't be happening any time soon.
But after a few years of squeezing, locals may have no choice but to pay their entire paycheck to foreign investors. Though thankfully the government is planning to take steps to potentially outlaw foreign buyers. If we're lucky, and some parties get their way, they might just strip the properties from them. If you're not living here, you have no business owning dozens of homes.
[1] https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXZQOUC183D80Y4A110C2000000/
My shallow experience of Japan tells me that if there's one country that can regulate the shit of the airbnb problem, it's this one. We're so used in the west to see properties as an asset that only appreciates that we've lost sight of what homes are meant to be. Meanwhile the whole Mediterranean coast is being bought by foreigners with the help of greedy local fucks. I've been told the Portuguese have it much worse even.
Nothing vents off like a bit of class hate, doesnt it. Locals from your description act legally within the limits of the law, if you dont like situation change laws, thats the way for a change.
Everybody maximizes their profit and thinks first and foremost about themselves and only then about the rest. Case point - a better half of this forum works/worked for faangs and their variants who destroy privacy and more of whole mankind for the sake of profit for themselves, and even pat themselves in the back how effectively they helped the 'the goal'.
It's my class that I'm blaming.
> if you dont like situation change laws, thats the way for a change
Which is done by protesting and advocating for it. Not being in a "that's the way things are" attitude.
> Everybody maximizes their profit and thinks first and foremost about themselves and only then about the rest.
What a sad way to see life. It is so easy to find countless examples of people doing exactly not that. American individualism really got to your brain.
I see a difference in-between selling your property at current market rate and having a business which relies on destroying the housing supply to make profit. I don't work for companies who "destroy privacy and more" even though it would be in my interest, many of us are not pure profit-maximizers.
> it's clueless rich people and corporations buying up properties and thinking they can flip them
so the original owner got a nice priced deal out of the sale. Then, when said clueless rich person decides to sell in the future due to being unable to hold on to it any more, they make a loss (which is a gain for that future buyer, whoever they are).
> after a few years of squeezing, locals may have no choice but to pay their entire paycheck to foreign investors
why the squeeze? If the airBNB is being occupied, then it simply means the price for the rental was correct, and it was artificially low before (due to the demand not being met for short term stays).
An AirBNB can be occupied for 2 days a week and make more than typical rent.
People who see homes as a mere unit of value meant to be priced on a global scale, and not something people should be living in, are simply inhuman. People in cities around the world are getting fed up with it, with justified protests and even riots happening.
Rentseeking has no limit. Unimaginably rich corporations can buy up every property and leave almost everyone homeless. They can take 90% of the paychecks of everyone else. And they'll say "well prices were artificially low before." No. Now they're artificially high. People in desperate situations pay more and take out debt because they have no other reasonable choice.