Mansions

When you think of mansions, what do you think of? Towering stone walls, hundreds of glass windows. A monster house with seventeen bathrooms and five swimming pools. Intricate stone carvings of gargoyles leaning precariously off the edges of the roof. Hundreds of wide steps leading up to each lavish floor. Meticulously shaped marble carvings along each doorway. Hand-painted wallpaper, bathtubs with clawed feet, velvet trim on the throw pillows that go with the sofa you could endlessly sink into. A place we all dreamed to live in as kids, a place only the very lucky or the exceedingly wealthy could even think of owning. What if I told you that in Japan, many people live in mansions?

Unfortunately, Japanese mansions are not the same thing as American mansions. In Japan, the word mansion, or manshon (マンション) refers to a huge concrete structure full of apartments. That’s right: in Japan, mansions are just apartment buildings. These mansions are generally many floors high and set in locations that have good views. Because these buildings are so huge, however, they are called mansions after the gigantic, lavish houses in America. This name made mansions in Japan exceedingly more popular, as the name reminded them of being rich or living an extravagant lifestyle.

As I said earlier, Japanese mansions can be many floors high. The second picture is an example of a very tall Japanese mansion. In Japan, it’s important to many Japanese people to live in a space that has a good view. That’s why apartments in Japanese mansions are more expensive the higher up they are. The better the view, the higher the rent. Some Japanese mansions, however, are shorter, or placed in a place where the view out the window is just another apartment building. Since Japan has such densely populated areas, buildings are often built very efficiently based on the land they are created on. This causes the view from some buildings to be not as good as the view from others.

Another important factor when people in Japan are choosing an apartment is the accessibility of the place. The closer a Japanese mansion is to a station, the more pricey the apartments inside it tend to be. The apartments are also more pricey if the Japanese mansion is close to convenience stores, restaurants, or shopping malls, because then the demand for the apartments in the mansion is higher.

Each Japanese mansion usually uses many factors to draw in prospective customers. Similar to in America, landlords or realtors of the mansions will show prospective buyers the apartment and let them see the space (and the view) for themselves. Sometimes mansions will create a functioning model of an apartment in the lobby (complete with a TV instead of a window that shows the view from various floors) that customers can interact with, so they won’t have to go up to the apartment itself.

Mansions in Japan are just apartment buildings, however, that doesn’t make them any less popular in Japan.

Below are a few pictures of Japanese mansions.
Here is the source for this image! [http://livedoor.blogimg.jp/c21oita6/imgs/c/f/cfcdaaca.JPG]


Here is the source for this image! [https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/99/Century-Park-Tower-2.jpg]