New House

We moved up to the ridge of foothills behind the city last May. We're only 15 minutes from town and 20 minutes from work, but we're living at a 1000 ft. elevation instead of sea level. The weather is a little different up here. There's little need for an air conditioner in the summer, but the winter has teeth. I never thought I'd buy a house in Japan for reasons obvious to most residents of the Estados Unidos. Land is expensive, sold by the tsubo, a unit of measurement equal to 2 tatami mats. Then there's what you don't get: no yard, no central heating and no increase in the value of the house as time goes by. Contrary to what you expect in the good old USA, houses steadily depreciate in value and are torn down and replaced by new ones as time progresses. But, a funny thing happens when you leave the city and climb through the groves of cedar and bamboo, home prices start to decrease rapidly as lot sizes begin to expand.