Would You Still Buy the House If the Train Never Came?

There are few things more tempting in real estate than being told something big is coming.

A new train line. A major redevelopment project. A new airport. A big employer moving into town.

Suddenly, a place you've never thought about becomes interesting.

That's exactly what happened to me with Hashimoto.

Japan is building a new Maglev line designed to run at around 500 km/h, and one of the stations is being built near Hashimoto in Sagamihara. The scale of the project is hard to ignore.

But while we were filming there, I kept coming back to a simple question:

Would you still buy the house if the train never came?

I think that's a pretty good test.

Because future infrastructure can be a reason to start looking at an area. It should not be the reason you stop asking whether the property itself is any good.

The story can be more exciting than the house

This is where I think buyers can get themselves into trouble.

A great future story can make an ordinary property look better than it really is.

You start thinking, "Yes, the house is a little far from the station, but imagine what this area will be like in ten years."

Or, "The layout isn't ideal, but a new train is coming."

Or, "I wouldn't normally pay this much, but this neighborhood is about to take off."

Maybe. But that's a lot of work for the future to do.

A new station does not automatically make every nearby property more valuable. The effect of major infrastructure depends on the place, the existing city, and where the property actually sits within it.

That's one reason Hashimoto interested me.

The Maglev is the headline, obviously. But Hashimoto isn't some empty town waiting for a train to give it a purpose. It already has multiple rail lines, buses, shops, commuters, and the feel of a functioning city.

That gives you something real to evaluate now.

And you need that, because the future part of the story is still uncertain.

The original opening target for the Maglev was 2027. That isn't happening, and there is still no firm opening date. The project is also far more expensive than originally estimated.

None of that means the project won't eventually happen.

It just means you shouldn't buy a house as though it already has.

What are you actually buying today?

We looked at two very different houses near Hashimoto.

One was the more affordable option: an older home that had been renovated and was ready to move into. The other was much newer, closer to Hashimoto, with more outdoor space and a different kind of long-term flexibility.

For example, the newer house has a bedroom on the first floor that can open into the living area or be closed off as a separate room. That's the kind of detail that could matter if you have guests, work from home, or simply don't want stairs to become a problem later in life.

The Maglev doesn't answer those questions for you.

Neither does a big redevelopment project.

You still have to decide what you actually need from the house.

Would you want to live there?

Does the price make sense for you now?

Does the location work with the transportation that already exists?

Could you live with the area as it is for a long time?

Those are the questions I'd want answered before I got too excited about what might happen later.

Because the longer you may have to wait for the upside, the more important the present becomes.

The kind of upside I like

My view is pretty simple.

The best real estate upside is the upside you didn't need.

If you find a house you already like, in an area that already works for your life, at a price you can live with, then a future improvement can be a genuinely nice bonus.

Maybe the Maglev makes Hashimoto more connected and more important.

Maybe it will take much longer than expected.

Maybe the benefits aren't distributed evenly.

You don't know yet.

But if the house already made sense to you, you don't need to panic every time the timeline changes.

That's a very different position from buying a property you don't really believe in and hoping the future rescues the decision.

A future project should make you more curious.

It shouldn't make you less skeptical.

We filmed the full Hashimoto episode with two very different homes and a local real-estate expert who gave us his own cautious, long-term view of the area. If you want to see the example that got me thinking about all of this, you can watch it here:

Japan’s Fastest Train Is Coming Here. The House Prices Don’t Make Sense.