Why a real estate expert declares that criticism of “tower condominiums” is “the howling of losers by people who can’t afford them”.

Over 500 million yen… “Billionaire’s Apartments” are not even a topic of conversation anymore.

On social networking sites and in online articles, the discourse that “property values will continue to rise” and the discourse that “they will be abandoned in a few decades” are both being held up. Now that prices in the hundreds of millions of yen are commonplace, those who are considering the purchase of a tower condominium are probably wondering which of these two theories is correct.

In this article, real estate and finance writer Heki Nanami explains the safety aspects of tower condominiums and predicts how the asset value of tower condominiums will change in the future.

In recent years, tower condominiums have rapidly increased in number as a symbol of urban areas. Prices have been rising rapidly, and in a short period of time, a property priced at 100 million yen has gone from 100 million yen to 200 million yen.

In the past, when the price exceeded 100 million yen, people used to talk about it as a “billion-dollar condominium,” but today, towers exceeding 100 million yen are common, and that alone is not enough to make people talk about it. In the popular bay area, newly built townhouses over 70 square meters in size are priced at well over 200 million yen.

Recently, the price for the second sales of the first phase of “The Toyomi Tower,” a tower condominium in Chuo Ward, Tokyo, where construction was temporarily halted due to concrete strength problems, was announced. A room on the top floor is approximately 150 square meters and is surprisingly priced at over 500 million yen.

The existence of such a townhouse has sparked debate on various occasions. While they are derided as “the view gets boring after three days” and “a place for vain people to live,” there are many people who wish to purchase them, so there is no doubt that they are popular.

If you look at the comments section of X (formerly Twitter) and news distribution sites, you will see so much criticism of townhouses.

‘Stupidity and smoke go high.’
If you forget something, it’s hard to get back to it.
And, “A big earthquake will snap your condo.”

To be honest, many of these comments are at the level of those who have never lived in Tawaman, and they are not very targeted.

For example, it would be the same in a 15-story building, not in a tower apartment, that it is a hassle to forget things. If you take into account the performance of the elevator, the difference in return time between the 15th floor of a non-tower apartment and the 30th floor of a tower apartment is at most 10 seconds, maybe even the same. If you want to bemoan the loss of time, you can go to …… for a year and see how much time is saved by having a tawaman in a better location.

That condominiums fold in a major earthquake is another criticism that is not well founded. If a major earthquake were to hit a condominium, which is built to strict building standards, it is certain that both ordinary condominiums and houses would have been severely damaged. Many critics use tower blocks as the main subject of criticism, but they are not unique to tower blocks.

Tawaman-shaming” is the sore loser of those who can’t afford to buy.

Some criticized that they would be abandoned in the future, but such objections are becoming less common as the popularity of Gulf Coast townhouses continues to heat up and prices are rising.

On the other hand, there is a new type of criticism: “Pursuing only property value is evidence of a lonely heart. The point is that one’s own home is the space in which one spends the most time, so one should give priority to “what one wants to live in,” and that it is inexcusable to choose a home based on its property value.

While I don’t disagree with what they are saying, I think that most people who live in townhomes probably live in them because they like them, even though they are considering their property value.

A home that maintains or increases in property value is more efficient and down-to-earth asset management than anything else. The monthly repayments are steadily building up one’s own assets. In fact, it would not be unusual for a family-sized tower block a few years ago to have more than doubled in price.

Since it is one’s own home, one cannot immediately use the unrealized gains, but this good feeling, this psychological leeway, is part of a comfortable lifestyle. For most people, holding tens of millions of yen or more than 100 million yen in assets for which buyers can be found immediately will be a source of comfort in case of emergency.

Think about it calmly. Can your home in the suburbs, arranged to your liking, hold its value in 20-30 years?　There are critics who say that townhouses will become ghost towns, but it is needless to argue whether the suburbs or the city center will suffer the brunt of the population decline first.

If the number of vacant houses increases in the suburbs, not only will property values decrease, but it is highly likely that buyers will not be able to buy them. It means that mortgages that were paid off near retirement age after working for a long time will be empty, and the value of the house will be lost, making it impossible to sell it.

If you should find yourself in financial difficulties in your old age, which would you prefer: “a life in which you can sell your house and get over 100 million yen” or “a life in which you can no longer sell your house and are left with no way to live?

Buying a house for its asset value is a fairly rational decision. People who have never lived in a house criticize the luxurious entrance as a waste of money, but they would not feel bad about a beautiful entrance.

I don’t like to think about it, but if I were to get divorced, I wouldn’t have to worry about disposing of my property. If I had bought a Gulf Coast tower block a few years ago, a buyer would have been found quickly and I would be in a position to make an unrealized profit.

I’ve even seen articles like, “Household finances change rapidly and payments become difficult …….” Depending on the time of year and size of the apartment, even if you sell it due to difficulty in making repayments, you will still have more than 10 million yen in cash on hand, which is much better than buying a cheap apartment from the beginning and continuing to live in it. If the price is doubled for a family-type room, over 50 million yen in cash could remain. Rather, we should rejoice because we have more cash on hand thanks to having forced ourselves to buy a Tawaman.

If you unravel the criticism of Tawaman, the center of the vortex seems to be the lamentations of those who couldn’t afford it. As if they don’t care about such nonsense, the large towers in the bay area are towering over the city and have an overwhelming presence that comes into view even if you don’t want to see them. And now, all of them are out of their reach. It is not a question of “not buying,” but of “not being able to buy.

Towamans are no place for people to live.

Trying to stabilize themselves by lowering the price of tawamans in this way may be the most rational thing for those who can’t afford them.