Cost of living in Kantō, Kansai?

7 comments

1. This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.

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   **Cost of living in Kantō, Kansai?**

   Hi, mina-san.

   My wife (Japanese) and I (American) are thinking about moving back to Japan. Maybe buy a small house in a place like Ōmiya or Nara or wherever (i.e., a smaller city with good healthcare and transportation, but lower cost of living/real estate than a major urban center–open to suggestions of other locations, too).

   We haven’t lived there in quite a few years, and we also both really only have Tokyo as a frame of reference; iow, our current knowledge is both out-of-date and geographically limited.

   So, with all of this as prologue, would anyone be able to offer any insights about what it costs to live there these days? Ideally, I’d love to know where you live, what you live in (i.e., LDK, 2LDK, 一軒家, etc.), what your monthly spend is, etc. Along with any sources of information you might be able to recommend. (I speak/read Japanese–was a translator for a long time–and have started noodling around with the Suumo app to at least start gauging real-estate prices, but, again, I don’t really know too much beyond Tokyo.)

   Thanks very much for anything you might be able to share! 宜しくお願いします!

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2. Just doing some research on this sub or /r/japanlife should give you plenty of cost of living posts to peruse. Though, to be honest, if you have the language skills then you can do all of this research in Japanese. You can look up hundreds of Japanese blogs/posts on this topic or look up interest rates on any bank’s site (they remain low). I don’t think there is much unique information you will find here since you’ve already lived here before. The bigger issue is usually employment/existing family. How important is location relative to your future employment, or to your wife’s family. Giving a bit more detail on those points may give people an easier time answering your questions, which are quite broad currently.

3. Chubu- which is cheaper than Kansai. I can can get brand new 2 LDK in center of chubu for 40-45m yen

4. Thanks for the reply. We’re not interested in seeking 住宅ローン, and are similarly not concerned about living near my wife’s family or job opportunities. Rather, our priorities are more centered around a chill and economically efficient retirement.

   Googling brought me to results like

   * https://pitamachi.com/municipality/topics
   * https://www.homes.co.jp/cont/rent/rent_00516/
   * https://www.navinavi-hoken.com/articles/family-of-four-living-expenses

   , which weren’t super-helpful (though it was kind of interesting to see that Hokuriku is Japan’s second-most-expensive region). Searching “cost of living” on this sub didn’t produce the information I was after, either, though it’s better than nothing. (Though I did learn the term “sexpat”, so it had that going for it. 😀 )

   I’m really just interested in real-world numbers, based on lived experience in the places I described. If I have to, then, yeah, I can turn this into a research project and go sifting through blog posts, etc. But the information I’m hoping to get is actually quite specific, and it would be awesome if anyone’s able to help out.

   Thanks again for considering my request.

5. Are you only interested in cost of living, and not quality of lifestyle, activities, etc?

   Lots of places have low cost of living but they can be very boring places. It’s more important to find a place first that has the things you like to do in the environment you like to do them.

6. Wife and I just bought a 20yo house (2LDK) in great condition near ninna-ji (north-west Kyoto) for 24mil. We spent about 8 months searching. Most new houses are priced around 34mil and generally are quite narrow (I think this might be specific to larger cities, in general).

   We lived in an apartment not 5 minutes away, walking. So, pricing for everything else should be relatively similar.

   – internet: 5,000/mo
   – phone: 4,000/mo
   – water: 1,000/mo
   – gas: n/a (all electric, now)
   – electric: 8,000-15,000 (seasonally, likely to double for the house)
   – groceries: 10,000/wk

   taxes vary depending on a lot of factors. So, I don’t think it’s worth it for me to speculate.

7. real estate japan website gives some listings and you can customize based on what you are looking for, and by area.