Progress and Land

Hi all. Just a quick message to say that we had a meeting last week and received the quote for shoring up the land in the area where the wall fell down. Again we were pretty tense before the meeting but the quote came in around what we were expecting and, although it isn't cheap, at least it will alleviate any future worries about the stability of the ground next to the parking area and we are still well within out contingency for overall land improvements.

The work is expected to take an additional 4 or 5 days, after which we can resume building properly. I think we will both be pretty relieved when the frame is up as the likelihood of expensive surprises should be greatly reduced at that stage. For now, fingers are crossed for a smooth few weeks of construction. I've asked the builder for some photos of the planned land improvements so will post these when we receive them.

In other news, I was perusing the various land and property portals the other day and found a nice, flat, ready-to-go piece of land a couple of minutes walk from our plot. It's unlikely to have the same impressive views and is slightly further from the station. The price per square meter is 3x what we paid for our land so even after the modifications and improvements we have chosen (and in some cases had no choice but) to make, we are still very happy with what we bought. In fact, at those prices, we would never have had a chance to buy such a good sized plot. Full marks to us for having a vision I guess!

Finally, I know there are a lot of folk reading this in Japan who are building or who are thinking about building here. A really useful resource that I think I have mentioned once before is the land registry website where details of land purchases and prices can be found. Amazingly, it is available in English!  

(http://www.land.mlit.go.jp/webland_english/servlet/MainServlet)