Mortgage question (yes again, sorry!)

Hi All!

Forgive me in advance for yet another mortgage question.
The reason I am asking for your help is because my situation is a bit different and I can’t find a post that is similar.

I recently moved to Japan in August 2022. I have a Japanese citizenship and also my wife (who does not work) is also a Japanese citizen. I work as an full-time employee and earn over ¥10M annually. I have assets and earning history in the states.

My bank is SMBC.

I am looking at a new mansion that is approximately ¥45M. I can provide over 20% downpayment from my Japan assets if needed.

Questions-
Given I have less than a year of work history in Japan, what are my options for getting a mortgage?
Should I at least wait until August to have a full year of work history?
Are there banks that will consider my foreign assets (SMBC told me they won’t)? If so, please provide me recommendations.

Any help/advice is appreciated! Thank you all!

6 comments
  1. Just randomly pick a property that resembles what you want to buy in terms of age, cost, and location, and blast out 5-10 pre-approval applications (仮審査) through a realtor agent. It takes like 15 minutes. Do a few traditional banks (SMBC, MUFJ), at least one foreigner oriented bank (Prestia), and some online banks. It doesn’t cost anything and you’ll have an answer instead of endless speculating on a billion possibilities.

  2. Yes, you can probably find a bank that will give you a residential loan now. No, your foreign assets and income have no influence on your loan application, unless you liquidate them into cash to increase your down payment.

  3. I got approved by Mizuho even though I had less than 1 year at my current company, so you might be able to get a loan there.

    MUFG required me to be at least one year at my current company.

    I would recommend you to do the application to a few banks, and see what feedback you get. Your chances will improve after being employed for 1 year, so if you get denied for that reason, you can apply again at that point. It doesn’t hurt to do the pre-approval application.

  4. Dude, if a bank wants to approve your loan they will. Have you considered asking a bank instead of random Internet strangers?

    In general you’ll want the real estate agent to recommend a bank to you.

    Also banks will want to look at the property. In the worst case scenario the bank doesn’t care whether you pay, they care whether they can sell the property to get their money back. So even pre-approval may require you to specify a property.

  5. You will definitely find banks that will give you the mortgage. Good salary with relatively smaller loan. The question at what rate. It could go as low as 0.4~%. Just apply to multiple banks and see what they offer and shop around. In my experience, smaller banks like Resona and Shinsei offered far better terms than the four mega banks.

  6. We’re going through this, you might have luck with Rakuten Bank, they were pretty much the only ones willing to talk to us until we mentioned we’re buying a Kominka.

    We’ve been back in Japan just over a year, we’re now just buying the house with cash and will wait until we’ve been in business 2 years then apply again for a reform loan with our local bank.

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