Architect - Yea or Nay?

One of the biggest deliberations that arose from an early stage in this project was whether to use a separate architect to design our house or whether to use a building company who would also take charge of the design. We went backwards and forwards over what would be the best strategy for our project and, after several months of discussion, were nowhere closer to a resolution.

As with all these things, we began to develop a loose sense of pros and cons about using a bespoke architect vs the all-in-one option. I’ll do my best to outline these below:

Architect – Pros

l  Genuinely bespoke house

l  Not limited by housebuilder’s motives to push us in a certain direction

l  Not restricted to a single housebuilder or to particular specialisms, materials, processes

l  A 3^rd party between us and the housebuilder to handle negotiations, complaints

l  Contractors and construction firms being more loyal to an architect (from whom they may get ongoing trade) than to a couple who will use their services once

l  Better use of available space on the plot of land

Architect – Cons

l  Price. Architects fees run to about 10% of the build cost. A very significant consideration.

l  Time. The design process is complex and takes forever.

l  Stress. Agonizing over minute details is likely to be trying enough. Everything suggested that this factor would be multiplied by introducing an architect into the equation.

l  Lack of local connection. We found very few architects in the area where we are building so we’d be working with someone from outside. Not necessarily a problem in itself but we could see potential future issues going unseen without some real local knowledge (especially where we were building)

l  Less choice over who would ultimately build the house. There is a tendering process but is likely restricted to firms that the architect has worked with before. Potential for being overcharged.

l  Weaker relationship between us and the builder. In Japan, aftercare is a big deal as houses usually require ongoing maintenance. A local builder with whom you have a good relationship is really important for this.

As you can see, there were quite a number of considerations and it was difficult to weigh them up, especially since a lot would depend on which architect or building company we opted to use. Having made the list, if anything, we felt further away from making a decision rather than closer. The only thing for it was to go and meet both.

We’d built up a longlist of builders and architects using both Google and an American website called Houzz (www.houzz.com) which has quite a few listings in Japan too. This is more difficult than it sounds as we had a pretty open idea of what we were looking for, which made narrowing down choices really difficult.

We wanted to use someone local but what exactly is local?! Same prefecture? Same city? Same ward? We also didn’t know if we wanted to build a concrete house (lasts a long time and expensive) or a wooden house (more prone to deterioration but cheaper) which made it difficult to shortlist, since most Japanese companies build one or the other. Our golden opportunity to chop the list in half was thwarted by our combined inability to make decisions (a recurring theme, as you will discover).

We eventually settled on a long list of 4 builders and 2 architects although we were certainly conscious of having not looked at everything and the ever-present FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). We chose the builders based on pictures and descriptions of houses they had built and location. With the architects, again pictures were important but we looked more for those who had completed commercial projects too as we felt this was an impressive addition to a portfolio. The Houzz review system provided some limited insight too. Both architects had good ratings.

We decided to go and see an architect first as we thought we might get more of an independent, impartial perspective and less of a sales pitch. Thankfully, this did turn out to be the case. On a cold Sunday morning, we took the subway to the center of the city and met at their offices with very little idea of what to expect.

It was the first time I had been into an architect’s office or met an architect professionally and, oddly enough, both were exactly as I had envisaged. The architect, T, greeted us wearing a pullover, grey sports jacket and rimless glasses. A picture perfect architect! He led us through a very narrow entranceway, since the office was actually closed and shuttered, and ushered us into the office.

The office was large and bright with green plants scattered throughout. There were hundreds of cardboard 3D models of buildings, pictures, posters, books, magazines and catalogues in shelves, on desks and chairs. Organized chaos, as expected.

We sat down after exchanging business cards and T asked us what we were hoping to build. Actually, I think Yuko and I looked at each other as if to say “We haven’t actually figured that out yet”. T picked up on this quickly and changed tact to ask us some more directed, specific questions and we began to get into our stride a bit more. He paused between questions to show us examples and explain prices and costs, which was really great as it gave us an opportunity to learn and ask better questions in return.

One thing that really stood out was T’s usage of English technical terminology whenever possible to explain concepts and materials. We got the impression that he could speak some English but all discussions took place in Japanese – fine for Yuko and fine for me for the more general stuff but there is a lot of technical terminology in housebuilding that is beyond me so we both appreciated his willingness to translate these bits so that I could follow what was going on.

He talked to us at length about their system and timescales and showed us some seriously impressive projects and buildings that they had designed. One of a number of examples that really impressed us was how he calculated window positions based on the heights of those living in the house in order to frame the trees outside in the most visually appealing way possible based on the occupants’ eye lines. It was this attention to detail in every project that he explained that led us to really see the benefits of using an architect to build the house. His passion was inspiring - it was clear that this guy loves designing houses!

After about an hour of back and forth, we said our goodbyes and, armed with a few catalogues and more questions than when we had started, we headed back home. One of the nice things about living in central Osaka is that we can walk to most places and this is especially useful after meetings where a stroll while debriefing and reflecting can be a really good way to generate some perspective.

On the walk home, we both concluded that we really liked T and that his experience was impressive. We could imagine working with him and were pleased with his honesty and his willingness to use English where he could. In short, we were a lot closer to finding an architect that we liked. The question still remained, however, as to whether to use an architect at all. To try and answer that question, it was time to visit a builder. Until next time...  

Land Ahoy!

First of all, an apology. It has been an embarrassingly long time since we last posted on this blog. I’m ashamed to see that over a year has passed. The main reason for this is simply that life just has a habit of getting in the way. I will endeavor to do better in future!

In our last post, I mentioned that we had put an offer in on a piece of land. More on the specifics of that later but first, a few words about the area of East Osaka in which we were looking. The area is suburban with good schools and good rail and road transport links into the center of Osaka. In the town/village itself, there are very few shops, almost no restaurants and no decent supermarkets either but these are all easily accessible by car or train. What it does have is greenery, incredible views and a real proper Japan countryside feel (and a great convenience store!). It’s a place where we know we would be happy to raise a family and to live in for the foreseeable future.

One challenge in finding land there was simply the absence of land plots available in the area, which has become increasingly popular with young families and also with grown up children returning to their family home after their parents have passed on (a common source of available land parcels) and deciding not to sell up but rather to stay themselves.

Another issue was that the area we were interested in is on the side of a small mountain (hill?) which offers some unique challenges for housebuilding in general. Since the mountain is small and reasonably densely populated, the roads that do exist are often quite steep and/or narrow.

We thought very carefully about the practicalities of living up or down a very steep slope from the station and basically came up with a notional cut-off point, “the line past which we would not cross”. Any plots past this line on the map were nixed on the basis that we didn’t want to walk too far uphill to get to the station. Luckily, the mountain features a kind of n-shaped spur jutting out which provides two elevated areas with a relatively flat walk to the station. We concentrated our search on these two areas.

Several months of searching produced precious little. We visited a few plots of land which were well located but all had some major issue. We came up against steep hills, plots that were too small or oddly shaped, expensive demolition projects, a lack of parking etc. etc. I wouldn’t say that we were close to giving up but our searches were becoming more wild and unwieldy and the catchment area in which were searching became unmanageably large.

There was one plot of land however with an old house and a hideous looking rusty red elevated shed on it that we had nicknamed “The Shitter” in our web-browsing. We passed it over time and time again until one day, for some unknown reason, we decided to go and look at it. I think it was probably the frustration at finding nothing new and wanting to feel like we were at least doing something.

I (Tom) went with the agent to see this large (by Japanese standards) 275sqm plot of land, which was situated about 7 minutes’ walk from the train station on one of the spurs, about 50 meters from a plot I had visited months ago (expensive concrete demolition required). True to the pictures, the shed was hideous and I concluded within about 10 seconds that the house next to it would have to also be torn down as there was no scope for remodeling, which was an option we were still considering at the time. Still, the views were nice and the place had a lot of character.

As we walked around, it was evident that this land would be difficult to deal with. Far from being a pretty, flat (expensive) parcel that most Japanese buyers favor, this plot was raised 3 meters above the road with a stepped stone retaining wall and old stone staircase leading up to a relatively flat plot at the top. By my calculations, only the flat plot would be buildable on so we would be instantly losing 30-40sqm of building area. The parking area was less than ideal too.

However, from the top it was clear that it would at least have rather nice west-facing views of the Osaka cityscape over the house in front (whose foundations are 3-4 meters lower) and an unrestricted view of the mountains in the distance to the North West. I was intrigued but far from sold on the idea. I started making calculations in my head about demolition costs (extortionate in Japan), land preparation costs, groundwork, utilities and so on. Things weren’t looking great.

The agents spoke to each other and mine came back to me with some rather surprising news. Although it hadn’t been well stated on the listing, the seller’s agent informed us that, since the seller ran a construction company, they would be willing to sell the land 更地 or “sarachi”. In other words, he would knock the old buildings down for us and prepare the land a bit as part of the deal.

To say this changed things is an understatement. This turned the land from an overlooked non-starter into a potential bargain. Suddenly, the land was worth considering seriously. Nevertheless, there were still a number of unanswered questions about things like sewerage, building regulations, utilities etc.

I won’t go into too much detail about that here as a lot of these things were somewhat unique to this particular plot but will summarize by saying that, each time we made inquiries about these issues, we created a notional best-case and worst-case scenario for how much it would cost. Almost without fail, every quote we got was at the right end of that scale. The positives were really stacking up.

A few weeks after first going to see the land and going back a few more times and making more inquiries, we felt that there were enough positives and there was enough potential to push ahead with an offer. The question was how much to offer! The land had been on the market for a long time and, in that time, the price had fallen by 40%. This didn’t perturb us too much as we figured that many Japanese buyers would be put off by the existing house or the perceived difficulty in construction. We’d made contingencies for any such issues and, although we were certain we didn’t have all the facts, we felt confident enough to make an offer.

After a lot of discussion and consultation with friends and family, we came up with a number and put our offer to the sellers. In truth, we did not expect this offer to be accepted as it was a full 20% below the already heavily reduced asking price. We expected this to be the start of a long and tedious negotiation. However, on a Monday afternoon in June 2017, we got a somewhat shocked and excited call from our agent telling us that the offer had actually been accepted. It was the last thing we expected and completely threw us.

A lowball or “dirty” offer is an interesting conundrum. Because it’s unlikely that it will be accepted, it’s an offer you can make a little more freely with perhaps a little less commitment. As we discovered, when it’s accepted, the first thing you do is panic and question just how serious you really are. Honestly, it didn’t really feel real at all. It took a few weeks for us to start to appreciate that this was going to happen!

This blog post is already far too long and it takes us rather nicely up to the point of the acceptance of our offer, which seems a good place to leave things for now. There have been a number of developments since then so I’ll be covering these in some catch-up posts over the next few weeks. For now, it’s good to be back and we hope you’ve enjoyed reading!