I got my permanent residency last week, so now my wife and I are looking to start buying our own place.
I’m wondering, if you had a chance to go back in time and buy your first property from scratch, what would you do differently? What advice would you give a first time buyer?
Hoping to learn from others experiences. 😊
28 comments
We built so I would say we should have done all electric and gotten solar panels. I think it will be slow but the market will eventually move toward all electric.
That’s about it. We had our kitchen counter height pulled up 5 cm and the stairs widened to accommodate our whole feet, and floor heating put in downstairs, all of which were good decisions in retrospect.
I knew how much city/ward lines matter, but I didn’t really know. I live on the edge of a major city but not in that city. I’m literally one block outside. But because I’m one block away, by default, my kid will go to a worse elementary school, my city hall is much further away, we can’t use the same after hours emergency hospital, the benefits are worse, and so many other small stuff.
Area in general has a huge impact on the available schools. It starts all the way from daycare (hoikuen). A lot of hoikuen use distance as a metric to judge your kid, not to mention being in a different city even if you are close.
About the house itself, I’m pretty happy. I viewed maybe 20 houses that fit my requirements. All the normal stuff, making sure all of the rooms have a south facing window, etc.
The only thing I would change is to have gotten under floor heating (yukadabou) installed. Compared to the price of a house, it’s not that expensive. And it would have really helped when my kid was a baby. I live in Kyushu and it still gets cold enough to warrant it.
My house came with green credits, so that was really cool. The credits were enough for two Aircon units, a big TV, and a Dyson vacuum.
Happy I built and didn’t buy off the shelf it’s like a 3x return on investment and only 20% more cost. Did a lot of research and had lots of reference material to show the architect which helped a lot to get where we wanted. Overall happy we went all electric, zenkankuuchou (ducted system running the house on one aircon), top level earthquake rating with dampers, insulation and triple glazed windows. Also big windows, lots of natural light and none of that Japanese inclination to live in a windowless box with port holes.
My biggest recommendation is find a builder focussing on airtightness, insulation and energy efficiency. No creature comforts will make up for having an energy efficient, solar powered house with low running costs.
Counter height. 90cm is the way to go. Virtually eliminates back pain. Make sure you know the boundaries of your property. They’re the red plus marks you find on the ground. Depending on neighbors people can be weird about that.
If you’re building, leave enough space on the sides of your house for air conditioning placement. You don’t want the units on your roof or having to be placed way far away from where it actually connects. The pipes that drain the water can get expensive. It’s like 1 man per extra meter or something like that. You could go on forever, but those were big ones for us.
Edit: also, don’t listen to the room requirements for air conditioners. All of those 〜畳 requirements/estimates are from post war times with rooms in Tokyo without insulation. They just never changed it because ¥¥¥.
My sources for this are the guys who built our house and the guy who installed our units.
Spend time until the perfect plot is for sale, then close that sale IMMEDIATELY. They are incredibly rare and is the one thing you can never ever change for any amount of money (realistically speaking anyway). We waited a long time for a plot with:
– great location for daycare/school/supermarket
– on a wide road with very little traffic
– surrounded by roads on three sides (only one adjacent house!)
– large land area, relatively speaking
– next to a park
– safe area from tsunami/landslides/flooding
When our realtor told us about it popping up on the market, we knew it was The One and signed the papers to buy it within about 4 days.
The details of the house itself aren’t a huge deal either way. Most things just come down to money. Better insulation might save you a buck or whatever. You can’t spend money to renovate yourself into a better plot/location.
So far, I would change absolutely nothing. It would be nice if our house was a little closer to the station, but can’t have everything.
If you want tips though, here are mine;
Buy second hand, either steel construct or RC if you can find it. Your money will go a lot further and a lot of my friends have complained a lot about the quality of the recent new builds. Also I find the design of the new builds morbidly dull.
Try not to get too caught up in whether or not it’s a good investment. In UK/US/Aus we are conditioned to think of houses in terms of how much the value will increase over time. Thats not going to happen here, although there are a few things you could do to mitigate loses (like buying second hand) but really, this is probably a house you’ll be living in for 20+ years. Which means that predicting house price value will be very difficult, but more than that, how much you like the place to live in will be much more important that any value increase/decrease.
Find an estate agent you trust, especially if your Japanese is not perfect. Ours was through Sumitomo and he was brilliant.
If you can, look at hazard maps for the area. If in doubt, get a house on top of a hill. It’s normally firmer ground which is safer for earthquakes, less tsunami risks and less landslide risk.
If you can, get a 35yr fixed rate mortgage. 10yr fixed might seem considerably lower, but even the rates on 35yr fixed are absurdly low.
Look at health insurance options on your mortgage, it’s unlikely that you’ll get to use the ‘long term illness’ cover because it stipulates you need to be in hospital for more than 30days, and most doctors will do what they can to get you out of their hospital long before 30 days. But the cancer cover is an excellent option. Mortgage gets written off as soon as they find a tumor. Malignant or benign.
Once you do move in, join the jichikai (neighborhood community scheme). It’s few hundred yen per year but they won’t really expect you to do anything and it’s a decent way to signify to your neighbors that you’re not going to cause trouble!
More outlets than you think you need. I bought a prebuilt house and I regret not taking time to but land and a custom house.
I have a home theater so I would have had a sound proof room build for it.
Paid attention to the shape of my roof. I was interested in solar panels but because my roof is a weird disjoint shape I wouldn’t be able to generate that much power. If you are at all interested in solar make sure to get a house with a roof that’s 1 or 2 contiguous pieces.
Bought my first house 5 years ago and selling up soon. No regrets at all. Did the hazard map homework. Found a great area. No through road.
Luckily the price of land didn’t go down within 5 years so not losing any money on the sale.
Only thing I wish I did early was move back home instead of buying a house here.
If you are buying used:
Renovate before moving in. Go to all the different major providers for kitchen/bath/etc. and see what you like. Find a good local contractor who is willing to work with you and is happy mixing providers (i.e. out kitchen in Cleanup, our toilet Panasonic, our bathroom sink Takara, our bathroom Toto….). It is amazing the number of contractors who just try and push Lixil thanks to the sizeable profit they can make.
Improve insulation as much as possible. If you can put in double windows (二重窓/内窓) do it. It will greatly improve the insulation and also act as excellent sound barrier.
More electrical outlets. Our floor plan was pre determined, but only the foundation was laid. So, I was given the option for more outlets, but I was so focused on getting Ethernet cable ports in each room, I forgot to add more electrical outlets.
If you have lived in a few homes over the years, remember what you liked and what you didn’t.
A full on battle with wife/husband/architect now is better than years of “I told you so”.
Oh, you might also grow old together, so think of the future.
Built ours from scratch, one of those order-made houses . If you’re going with a house maker what they say is a spacious is different to what you think is spacious. My wife kept saying our house was way too big during house layout phase but I was adamant with my choice and when the house was actually built it was actually a little smaller than what we expected.
Never buy a house with vaulted ceilings
Get a place with more space than you think you’ll need (if you can).
When we bought our place we were comparing it to our cramped apartment and it seemed huge to us. But 7 years later, and now a family of 4 instead of 3, I wish we had gotten a bigger one (we have about 105 sqm on a 155 sqm plot). With no basement, garage or attic, Japanese homes run out of storage space real quick and an extra room would come in really handy about now.
Other than that I’m pretty happy with our place.
Good value, good quality used houses in Tokyo are like hens teeth (same applies for land, I guess). If you see one, don’t hesitate to pull the trigger, or you’ll still be searching 3 years later like myself.
Maybe pay an extra JPY7m to have the house built out of concrete so we can have a basement(?).
We chose the land we built our house because it was walking distance to the train line our daughter took to her elementary, junior and senior high schools – same train, no transfer.
Id have stuck to my guns and bought more expensive building it from scratch.
The prebuilt tateuri is fine and nice but it has features i didnt need(floor geating), no lan cables in the walls and while insulation is fine, the whole thing is built like a greenhouse, so radiative heat will gradually heat it up and because the insulation is good it then stays hotter than outside unless we blast the ac.
I had wanted to build(or at least add elements of) a passiv haus but my partner wanted to keep the price down.
Have enough money saved to buy the land outright.
If you can’t and it’s part of your bridge loan, the clock starts ticking immediately, and depending on things, you have 2 weeks to 3 months to design your place.
If you have the land already, you can spend as much time as you want with the architect, and you can actually pit builders against eachother, evaluate their building methods, visit built houses by them and all that.
Designing, selecting builder and doing all the due diligence around it takes a minimum 6 months in my opinion, and you can’t start that process until you have the land.
What I’m really happy about is skipping the floor heating. I hate it, makes be my feet sweaty, doesn’t feel natural. Builder really tried to push it. Fucking expensive too.
Instead, during winter time my 10cm thick insulated concrete floors are heated in the morning by direct sunlight and it feels wonderful walking on that. Summertime, it’s cold and contributes as a heat sink for the full house. Beautiful carpets where one stands around so feet never get cold 🙂
A bit wider balcony
Get real wood flooring instead of fake wood
Urethane foam for isolation instead of the old school glass wool.
Complain a bit more during the visual inspection
Add more electrical outlets and lights
I wish I had a Light on the balcony for when I cook barbecue on the balcony.
I don’t have anything to say about my neighborhood. Have schools, supermarkets etc. It’s super boring so no noisy night lifers.
Consider secondhand and renovation, both houses and apartments. I would only consider building new if a) I intend on living there forever and b) I have the budget to do it “properly” to a spec I would not regret.
Personally I think well located secondhand apartments up to 25 years old are the way to go, but appreciate it is not for everyone.
Never think that solar panels will save money. You have more leverage if you pay cash!
I can only give advise on buying off the market, not building your own. However, the housing market in Tokyo is intense. The 5 new builds next to me were snapped up before the foundations were laid. In this case, you can ask for modifications easily.
**Regrets**
1) I have a lot of balconies and a roof balcony however there is no water access for a hose, which makes cleaning difficult. I added a hose attachment to the 2F faucet (taps) as the only attachment standard was on the 1F. Really, I need water outlets on the roof so I will be adding one soon.
2) Power outlets everywhere if you can.
3) Check the stairwells are tall enough so you don’t hit your head if you are tall.
4) Some stairwells (maybe most new builds nowadays) don’t have doors. This means that the cool air in the summer sinks down to the lower floors, or the hot air in the winter rises up. Install curtains or some form of door if you can to lower heating and electricity bills and avoid the precious cool/hot air from escaping.
5) All new builds in Tokyo from 2025 will require solar panels. I don’t know if you are in Tokyo. However, the new builds next to me have very strange shaped roofs. You can’t put solar panels on them in any efficient configuration.
6) Make sure that the post box is on the side of the door so people are standing in the right place when you open the door. My house, the post door is on the door hinge side so when I open the door I can’t see the person as they are standing off to the side. I don’t think this is usually an issue as house builders think about these things, but sometimes people make mistakes. Also, take the chance to get a decent post box. Not a crappy cheap one. Ideally with a delivery door for parcels.
7) If you have a 3 story house, get an intercom that has a panel on the 3rd floor also. I can’t hear my doorbell when I’m upstairs with the aircon on. I will have to buy an intercom panel with a wifi additional receiver for the 3rd floor. I’ve missed so many parcels.
8) If you want to make some money, buy a property with a bunch of empty houses nearby, or a property without the required 4m between you and the house opposite. Your house will be very cheap and when the house opposite is redone, you will get your 4m and the value of your house will increase a lot.
9) Don’t stick the aircon over your bed. Put it at the other end of the room not facing you. And don’t cheap out on the aircon. Buy a decent one with wifi, an app, and decent silent mode. Don’t bother with the fancy “it follows you around the room” rubbish. It’s nonsense. But an aircon you can activate remotely 10 minutes before you come home is a blessing.
10) Do get decent flooring. The standard stuff they put in houses dents if you drop anything remotely heavy on it (even a remote control). I have tons of dents and it’s only been 2 years. Even with a coating that supposedly hardens it. If you have the chance, buy flooring that can withstand a knock or that can be replaced easily. The flooring I have is glued down. They can’t replace a single board without lifting everything up right to the wall and destroying the boards. Very annoying.
11) If you want decent shelves in all your closest, make sure there are. I didn’t have a shelf in one of my room’s closets. I’m having to install one.
12) Make sure the bathroom mirror if tall enough so you can see your face. Didn’t check that and now I’m going to have to either replace the whole unit or somehow figure a way to lift up the mirror section only. I can’t see my hair without bending down. (I’m 6″2).
13) Get a decent shower head.
14) Get lots of shelves in all toilets. You will use them and if no shelves, you will only end up adding ones or using the plastic rack shelving that you jam into place.
15) Make sure that your stairwell can actually allow the things you buy through. My stairwell is so narrow I could only fit things 60cm or narrower. This removes any chance of buying a large fridge-freezer. You could ask the house maker to install large items while building the house to avoid this. Otherwise you’ll have to lift stuff through patio windows if your LDK is on the 2nd floor and you have narrow stairs. 60cm isn’t every the narrowest stairwells I’ve seen in Japan new builds.
16) Summer gets hot and the sun is up early, so it also gets bright by 5AM. I can’t sleep with any light coming in and get woken up easily by increasing light levels in the bedroom (plus light while you are sleeping is bad for your health – Google it). I will be installing blackout blinds into the window’s recess that also will reflect heat. Blackout curtains will not do much as the light just leaks around the edges (unless you have recessed curtain rails, which you probably won’t have).
17) Buy some stands for your bike(s). So much easier to park. Also, a car park on a stock build will add maybe an extra 600k to the price in Tokyo. I see people with parking spaces and no car (they have places stuff in the space so it could never have a car) and I think what a waste of money. At least rent the space out…
That’s about it. Everything I have learned over the last two years of owning a house in Tokyo.
We built. Things I regret and would do differently:
1. Outlets, more everywhere. The “interior designer” for our place was about as useful as a chocolate teapot. We didn’t know what was appropriate. They didn’t either. Same goes for lighting fixtures and paint/wallpaper choices. They just gave us a big book of samples and said choose what you like and tell us where you want them.
2. Underfloor heating. It would have cost an extra 200万 but We live in Tohoku, it gets cold in winter. We have 15cm of insulation rather than the standard 10cm. But it still gets cold as hell. In winter everything is heated with the AC. I hate it.
3. Kitchen. This was the hardest thing to deal with. I am tall and wanted taller counter tops. The house makers no1 supplier was shit and didn’t really have a taller option we liked, no 2 had something but was 3 times the price. We found a 3rd supplier and had to spend several 3 hour long meetings arguing with the house maker to let us use this supplier, obviously they get have partnerships with certain suppliers but it was a deeply frustrating experience. The kitchen still isn’t ideal and is still Japanese style. I just wanted an IKEA kitchen but that was so far out of the realm of possibility in their minds. My regret is that I didn’t insist on that. I just couldn’t handle the teeth sucking any more.
The only things I regret are not getting a full size dishwasher and a small dedicated laundry room. There’s so much laundry, and it’s super hard to stay on top of folding it away every single day.
I’m building my house in Fukuoka. Custom design. Polyurethane insulation on all walls and floors. Solar panels on roof. Wide stairwell. Full bath/ofuro downstairs and 3/4 bath upstairs. Lots and lots of outlets. But when I asked the builder if he could build an outlet into the living room floor, under where the couch would go, he said it wouldn’t be possible. Didn’t give me a clear explanation. Has anyone built one in their house or have they encountered the same issue?
Should have bought 2 places in Toyosu area and watch the prices go up rather than that place in Chuo-ku. Still went out but could have made double the profit!
I wish I had 86ed the floor heater and the electric toilets both are both not in use and the floor heater is unnecessary in Kansai and it costs a fortune to run..
Also if you are having a house built. Make sure they don’t put windows at varying heights on the same floor . They tried to do that with me… So annoying.
Also some designers want to indent the front entrance to the house at the expense of house space for the purpose of when it rains… Completely a waste of space in already small house… Get an awning instead.
Do not rush your design/layout..
1.
Use every bit of dead space.. they will tell you there is no dead space..
They lie. They’re is so much unused dead space…
Get storage built under your staircase etc.. ask if they can make any storage under your house etc…
Specify the wallpaper you want in the closet.. they don’t ask and they skimp..
Tell them you want the outlet behind the toilets not on the side wall… Also tell them you want rant the refrigerator outlet behind the refrigerator not above it…
Get an inside design you can modify later if necessary… Have the house built with knocking down walls and connecting adjoining rooms later in mind.
Outlets… You will either have too few or too many.. you will never have the correct amount.. and they won’t be where you eventually need them… just have to live with this
Make sure the water hose spigot is located correctly outside and near where you need it…
They always try to rush you through things because there is so much to do and decide… You are the boss but as soon as everything starts it is kind of an avalanche of poop.
Don’t skimp on things.. it costs more to fix something or replace it later than the money you save by skimping in it in the first place.
Finally if you are pretty sure you are not going to use rooms initially wait to buy the ac unit. Get it when you need it.