Hello,
I have been looking at house prices and I am little bit confused.
I want to have a small house in a big city (Tokyo/Osaka etc) but it will be in a rural area. For example, I want to be able to go to city center with train in around 1 hour. In Tokyo that would be north of Saitama for example. When I look at prices in Japanese real estate websites, I can find some houses (detached and apartment) but when I look at average prices in Japan, they say “you need around 30 million yen at least to buy a house”. Houses I found look decent and they are around 10 and 15 million yen but am I missing something?
Any tips?
by dolmakalemmmm
10 comments
If a house is that cheap you are likely missing something, but it’s such a case by case thing that it’s hard to give general advice. If you dropped some links someone might be able to explain the low price.
Having said that, I have seen new houses in that price range, but they were small (2ldk and smaller), and in the middle of Wakayama.
An hour north of Tokyo you are looking at Omiya station in Saitama….. I’d be surprised if you can get something near the station for 10-15man that isn’t a shit hole.
I’d be more looking at the eastern area, out near chiba and extend your travel time to 1.5 hours or so.
You’ll likely find a lot of your searches come up with older homes 30+ years) which is not ideal, since especially older homes in Japan have terrible insulation and can be quite drafty. New construction in that price range exists, but then you’re likely looking at 1,200 sq ft lots with narrow buildings.
To pursue your search though, you’ll need to go through a real estate company – they can help you find the right place and you’ll likely need them to put in an offer.
Real estate is location, location, location. Japan is no exception.
You can find well-built houses at great prices if you don’t mind putting up with really inconvenient locations. Far from public transport, far from local conveniences (supermarkets, clinics, shops, restaurants etc). It really comes down to that. The more inconvenient the location, the lower the price.
The trick is there’s often a spot at which the ‘convenient/inconvenient’ line blurs somewhat. In those areas, you need to determine whether you’re buying a good house in somewhat inconvenient location, or a bad house in a somewhat convenient location.
I’m not qualified to give housing advice but I see a lot of newly built house here in a remote area of Gifu ranges from 18M to 29M. 20min drive to Gifu station.
1 hour outside Tokyo is not usually rural yet, still suburbs.
Near the station you won’t find houses at that price.
I suggest you look closer to Tokyo but further away to the station .
If you like Saitama, you can check east and west of Omiya, there are some lovely residential areas with larger houses, but to go to Tokyo you will need to first commute by bus to a station. You can find used houses for 100,000 USD in that area. If you want to “make it your own” you can find an even older one (80-90k) and spend 10-20k on renovations.
Absolutely you can. We have a property bought for much less that. The building is old but was already renovated quite decently.
The catch, it is really far from the station in a not very nice suburb. I would never want to live there personally.
Far from a train station means land is close to worthless. Houses straight from the catalogue with little modifications can be very cheap. In a bad location buying a new house would be possible for 15-20m.
Don’t buy such a place if you want to sell it.
Alternatively, if it’s an old saikenfuka (non rebuildable house), then even in seemingly good locations houses can be dirt cheap, due to them being practically worthless for most people’s needs.
There’s also some other shenanigans like renting the land and building on top of it. But just don’t do that.
House prices deprecate to ¥0 within just 25-30 years in Japan. Most cheap prices imply that you only buy the land value, or even the land value minus the removal costs (bulk waste disposal is crazy expensive, eg. ¥5M and more) of the old house.
Very old houses (90-150 years old) can be great to renovate, while post WW2 houses are often crap. Get it properly inspected by a professional before you make any decision.
Take the information as a guide and not 100%.
Look up Ikoma city in Nara prefecture. [suumo](https://suumo.jp/nara/) don’t let the “city” part fool you.
It’s literally on the other side of the mountain from Osaka. Can literally see Osaka on the other side depending which part of Ikoma City you live in. 15 mins away from Osaka by train. City center of Osaka, 25 mins or so pending which part you going to. Even faster by car if it’s not rush hour.
Old homes are dirt cheap in Ikoma. You could find a 3LDK or 4LDK for around or less than 100k USD.
90% or so are made out of wood frames with concrete foundations. Easy to find one over 22 yrs old so you don’t have to pay property taxes on the house, just the land. It’s about ¥3,165 per Tsubo. So if you find yourself a house around 40 tsubo, then your land tax is around ¥126,600.
[Ikoma city tax average](https://totinokati.com/kakaku/%E3%82%A8%E3%83%AA%E3%82%A2/%E5%A5%88%E8%89%AF%E7%9C%8C-%E7%94%9F%E9%A7%92%E5%B8%82/%E5%9B%BA%E5%AE%9A%E8%B3%87%E7%94%A3%E7%A8%8E%E8%A9%95%E4%BE%A1%E9%A1%8D/)
If Ikoma is still too much of city for you, Heguri village is 20mins away in the opposite direction and so is the country side of Kyoto in another direction. Property Taxes in Heguri is about half that of Ikoma.
Edit: forgot to mention, taxes in Osaka and Kyoto are higher than Nara unless you’re willing to move to a village.