The property values may go to zero, but the land values only appreciate.
As land values increase and dominate the equation the house value might as well be zero anyway as it approaches irrelevancy.
(As an aside I've heard mixed things on this, with some saying that this notion of houses depreciating severely is no longer the case...)
I'd really really love someone with real, real deep knowledge of the Japanese housing market (eg. a banker, real estate agent or mortgage broker) to weigh in and go through everything in detail because it feels like all we usually get are breezy generalizations with such low detail that I only have more questions after reading.
As land values increase and dominate the equation the house value might as well be zero anyway as it approaches irrelevancy.
(As an aside I've heard mixed things on this, with some saying that this notion of houses depreciating severely is no longer the case...)
I'd really really love someone with real, real deep knowledge of the Japanese housing market (eg. a banker, real estate agent or mortgage broker) to weigh in and go through everything in detail because it feels like all we usually get are breezy generalizations with such low detail that I only have more questions after reading.