Factors to Facilitate Building Long-Life Quality Housing

Securing quantity of houses was the priority of housing policies in Japan since the World War II, but the policies have been shifted from quantity to quality in the 21st century, including promotion of long-life quality housing. Since then, various policy measures have been introduced in national and prefectural levels to promote building long-life quality houses. In this study, we analyzed the factors that the Japanese households choose to build long-life quality houses using panel data of 47 prefectures for seven years. We found that policy measures that cover only long-life quality houses were basically effective to promote building long-life quality houses, but policy measures that cover not only long-life quality houses but also other types of house were more effective. The national-level measures tended to be effective, while the prefectural-level measures were not. In addition, although the effects of individual measures differed, overall effect of policy measures were confirmed. It is concluded that providing economic incentives had positive impact on promoting long-life quality houses and such policy measures were successful to achieve the purpose. Therefore, to further increase long-life quality houses, it will be effective to continue subsidies or deduction of taxes.