Dec 06
0

The Kitahama and Complex Use

By | Life Style, Property, Real Estate

The Kitahama is located directly above Kitahama Station on the Sakaisuji Subway Line. It is also connected to Kitahama Station on the Keihan Line by an underground passage. Because it is near the street of Doshomachi, a historically famous pharmaceutical company town in Osaka, there are many historic buildings nearby. The Mitsukoshi department store was demolished and The Kitahama was built using the site.

The Kitahama is proudly the number one in the popularity ranking of Sumitomo Realty & Development’s 2020 edition.

 

In Japan, industrialization progressed rapidly from 1950 to 1990 after the war. In order to develop the manufacturing industry efficiently, restricted areas (zoning) have been defined in the urban development plan by Japanese government. The factory area, residential area, and commercial area have been set separately. As a result, good housing was located in the suburbs, and the living environment in Osaka was not good. Since around 1990, tower type high rise apartment buildings have been built in central Osaka. And people who lived in the suburbs began to move to the center of Osaka. This is because tower type apartment have made it possible to create a better living environment than a quiet living environment in the suburbs.

The Kitahama area has the historic atmosphere of “Doshomachi” and the atmosphere of the office district of the stock exchange. It’s not a bar like Namba or Dotonbori, so Kitahama area is safe and the nature of the locality of Kitahama is elegant. There are no large department stores. There is no electric shop, so people have to go shopping to Yodobashi Camera in Umeda.

The Kitahama is adjacent to a commercial facility called KITAHAMA PLAZA. It is very convenient for daily life to have a Konami gym, a food supermarket and restaurants. Konami here is classified as a high-grade one with a large facility and beauty. All the shops in KITAHAMA PLAZA are of high grade, so they are preferred by wealthy customers. The residents of The Kitahama are also wealthy people, so the building and the surrounding area have a luxurious atmosphere.

Such real estate development is called “Complex Use”. Complex development is close to work and residence. Complex development means a break from the Japanese old-style life of working at a factory for a fixed amount of time and returning home on a crowded train. People work in a cafe on a laptop computer. Work meetings end up in a cafe next to the apartment. Playing while working. From such a lifestyle, people can generate intellectual ideas. The “Complex Use” is a lifestyle for intellectual labor in a knowledge-information society, not Japanese traditional mechanical labor in a factory.

Dec 05
1

Tower apartment and health

By | Life in Japan, Life Style, Real Estate

Tower apartments are very popular because they have a good view, but various problems have been pointed out. In this article, I would like to consider only about the health of the residents of the tower apartment.

From my 20 years of experience, a 40-year-old Japanese-American wife who lived on the 38th floor had a miscarriage. On the other hand, the foreign wife who lived on the 34th floor gave birth to her second child safely.  I have no scientific basis for whether these things are related to tower apartments. That’s my actual experience.

Scholars have studied this issue and published treatises. Even if scholars criticize tower apartments, realtors deny scholars’ claims. Scientific proof does not seem to be clear yet.

It is known that the atmospheric pressure of 10hPa drops when it rises 100m. The height of one floor of the condominium is about 3 meters, so 100m ÷ 3 = 33 floors. In other words, the atmospheric pressure on the 33rd floor is 10hPa lower than on the ground.

When the weather is fine, it is high pressure. A heavy rainy day is a low pressure. The difference in atmospheric pressure between a clear day and a heavy rainy day is about 17hPa. Generally, the difference in atmospheric pressure between a sunny day and a bad day is considered to be about 10hPa.

“The number of patients undergoing cecal surgery is higher on rainy days than on sunny days,” said one medical doctor.  Certainly, on a clear day, humans become more energetic and motivated to work. On a rainy day, if we feel depressed and a low pressure system such as the rainy season continues, we may want to start crying even if there are no problems. The weather seems to have a huge impact on the human body. And the pressure difference in the weather is 10hPa.

I am a member of a fitness club and am doing underwater walking exercise in the pool. At first, I used to breaststroke, but at some point I began to think that walking in the water was more effective in improving my health than swimming. When I swim flat, my body floats on the surface of the water, but when I walk, I drop my feet to the bottom of the pool, which applies “water pressure”. Because of this “water pressure”, I go to the fitness club every day.

Thinking in this way, living on the upper floors of a tower apartment is thought to have at least some impact on the body.

If you are staying at a hotel for a few days, it is good to enjoy the view. It’s okay for a healthy adult to rent for a few years. However, if you have a pregnant wife or a weak person, it may be safer to avoid the pressure difference of 10hPa.

Dec 04
0

Umeda’s large-scale project “La Tour”

By | Life Style, Maid Service, Real Estate

“La Tour”:  https://www.sumitomo-latour.jp/osakaumeda/

The brand “La Tour” is owned by Sumitomo Realty & Development, mainly in the Tokyo metropolitan area, and is planned for expatriates from the architectural design stage. “La Tour” is a full-fledged foreigner’s house that knows the lifestyle of expatriates very well. There are other properties in Tokyo designed for foreigners, but “La Tour” is the number one in Japan.

There are many buildings of “La Tour” in Tokyo, but never in Osaka. 99% of the number of expatriates living in Japan is concentrated in Tokyo, and the market for expatriates in Osaka is so small that foreign housing designed well by major real estate developers wasn’t in Osaka.

In Osaka, expatriates are supposed to live in luxury homes for the wealthy Japanese. The floor plan that Japanese people like and the floor plan that foreigners like are fundamentally different, so no matter how high-class a house for Japanese people is, it was not enough for foreigners unless it was built for foreigners from the planning stage.

For example, Japanese people do not have a lifestyle of frequently inviting visitors to their homes. However, foreigners often have guests staying at home. Therefore, foreigners want more than one bathroom. Foreigners also want two or more toilets. In Japanese houses, the bathroom, the toilet and the wash basin are clearly separated, but Japanese don’t really want more than one.

Also, Japanese people, even wealthy people, do not want such a large housing space. There is not much habit of hiring maids or housekeepers to clean the room. However, foreigners feel that the Japanese housing space is small. “La Tour” prepares more than 300㎡ of residential space for foreign customers.

Also, Japanese people do not ask for services like a hotel concierge from a house, but for foreigners who are not very familiar with the situation in Japan, it is very helpful and happy to have a concierge service at the front of the house. It is very convenient for foreigners to have staff in their homes to support their lives in Japan.

Since the foreign rental market in Osaka is extremely small, it seems that most of the “La Tour” in Osaka are supposed to be Japanese renters. However, Sumitomo Realty & Development’s “La Tour” brand will no longer be “La Tour” unless there are at least some expatriates occupying it.

It is expected that talented and talented foreigners will move in this property and create a high-quality “full-scale foreign housing” in Osaka. For foreigners, this is Osaka’s first big news.

Related article: https://www.dios.co.jp/archives/3337

Dec 03
0

Hard and soft aspects of rental housing

By | Real Estate

When choosing real estate, you need to look at both the visible and the invisible. “Visible things” are hardware aspects such as buildings. “Invisible things” are human services that you can receive after you move into the property.

For rental apartments, this is a management service provided by the real estate company and the owner. Some properties provide quick response when equipment breaks down, but some properties are slow to respond to customer complaints and take weeks. Waiting for a long time is very painful. It is very comfortable to live in if the real estate company responds promptly.

Also, if the real estate company is a large company, it may be safe, but no personal relationships will be created. The systematic manual service is not so impressive. The person in charge will change in a few years. There are no long-term relationships. Rather, smaller real estate companies have more human warmth. Also, smaller companies may actually be more flexible and respond faster to customers than larger companies. I think a community-based real estate company that “sees the face” is good.

If you spend too much money on the hardware side such as the size of the building and less money on the software side of the service, it seems that the “visible thing” has succeeded, but you are dissatisfied with the “invisible thing”. Will occur. Rather, I think that the satisfaction level will be overwhelmingly higher if you spend money on software instead of spending money on hardware. There is nothing better than human service.