An average family in Tokyo can own a new house for $850/month
Japan may not be the ideal economic model.<p>In the 1980s, Japan had an enormous economic bubble. (This was the period when MITI, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, was the ultimate Platonic ideal of how to run a country&#x27;s economy and the Japanese Fifth Generation computing project was going to eliminate &quot;programming&quot; as a job category.) This bubble burst in 1990-1991. It was bad.<p>&quot;<i>GDP fell from $5.33 trillion to $4.36 trillion in nominal terms, real wages fell around 5%,... Many Japanese companies replaced a large part of their workforce with temporary workers, who had little job security and fewer benefits. As of 2009, these non-traditional employees made up more than a third of the labor force. For the wider Japanese workforce, wages have stagnated. From their peak in 1997, real wages have since fallen around 13%..[as of 2013].</i>&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lost_Decade_(Japan)" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Lost_Decade_(Japan)</a><p>&quot;<i>Japan&#x27;s annual land prices averaged nationwide have finally risen since the asset bubble collapse, though only mildly at 0.1%, a process that has taken 26 years to show up statistically.</i> [undated]<p>&quot;<i>By 2004, prime &quot;A&quot; property in Tokyo&#x27;s financial districts had slumped to less than 1 percent of its peak, and Tokyo&#x27;s residential homes were less than a tenth of their peak,...</i><p>&quot;<i>The Nikkei 225 at the Tokyo Stock Exchange plunged from a height of 38,915 at the end of December 1989 to 14,309 at the end of August 1992. By 11 March 2003, it plunged to the post-bubble low of 7,862.</i>&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Japanese_asset_price_bubble" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Japanese_asset_price_bubble</a><p>&quot;<i>After a long climb during the decades of Japan’s economic miracle, prices exploded in the late eighties in the frenzy of the bubble economy. Over the following decade, prices collapsed by over 80%, hitting a low in 2002.  Since then however, prices have increased and we are not in the middle of a stable period of growth with a positive outlook for the future.</i>&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;housingjapan.com&#x2F;buy&#x2F;history&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;housingjapan.com&#x2F;buy&#x2F;history&#x2F;</a> [I note: &quot;<i>Housing Japan is the leading real estate agent for international clients looking to rent, buy or invest in the Tokyo property market.</i>&quot;]<p>&quot;<i>Tokyo’s property market has had its ups and downs. At the peak of the bubble in 1989, some condos were selling for more than 1 billion yen, and buildings with more than 30 floors started springing up.</i><p>&quot;<i>After the bubble, prices plummeted. In 2002, the price per tsubo was about half that of the bubble era. But easier housing loans and low interest rates helped spur demand for new condos.</i>&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;asia.nikkei.com&#x2F;Business&#x2F;Markets&#x2F;Property&#x2F;Tokyo-property-prices-near-bubble-era-levels" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;asia.nikkei.com&#x2F;Business&#x2F;Markets&#x2F;Property&#x2F;Tokyo-prop...</a> [Has a nice graph of Tokyo condo prices, per-tsubo (3.3 sq. meters).]