Buying property in Nagasaki

5 comments

1. >I just found out today about the twice annual “bonus” mortgage double payments…

   This is optional. You don’t need to structure your mortgage that way.

   I am not really sure if you can get a mortgage without an employer in Japan. Are you at least getting paid into a Japanese bank account?

2. We’re going through this but so far I don’t have a lot of answers.

   Mostly we’ve been struggling because we’ve only been back in Japan a year and the banks are suggesting two to three years would be a minimum for them.

   I’m also ‘employed’ overseas but the actual setup is we started a Japanese company and that company contracts to my Australian employer. This hasn’t been too big a hurdle, save for the three years thing (The banks would prefer the company to have been running three years too).

   We’ve had some progress with Rakuten Bank but I’m unconvinced it’s the kind of company I want to get into bed with home loan duration.

   Currently plan B is to just buy the house with cash and then apply for grants to fund the restoration / renovation / costs of setting the house up to also operate as a cafe.

3. > The loan would be interesting since I’m paid overseas and she doesn’t work.

   It’s so cute you think you can qualify for a loan!

4. >> The loan would be interesting since I’m paid overseas and she doesn’t work..

   ​

   If you don’t pay Japan tax then I doubt you can get a loan because you can’t prove the income, I am currently buying house while bank wanted to be more secure because I declared that this year I got a big jump in salary, so they insist to get my latest tax payment record (while it’s too early because the tax payment was within a month that tax office can’t provide official paper about this yet), and eventually the bank asked me to sign a form for them to talk to tax office to get relevant information.

5. Don’t get caught in the “I must buy” trap, especially if you’re fresh off the boat.

   Home ownership almost anywhere is a dubious economic choice, but it’s straight up obviously bad economics in most situations in Japan. Huge depreciation, limited tax incentives, shrinking population, etc.

   People choose to buy for lots of valid reasons other than economics, and the longer your time horizon, the more likely it is that buying could be rational. But if you’re fresh off the boat and just looking around, unless you’re looking at something so cheap that you can just buy it with cash, just don’t think about buying.

   Rent some place, see if you actually like the city for a while, then you can circle back to buying in a few years if your long-term plans shape up to stay in one city long-term.