To move permanently what do I need to keep in mind?
I have a job I can work anywhere in the world, I’m a translator, but I’m willing to work in something else entirely, so I’d like to know what would you recommend to look for when browsing for a home to buy. It’d be for me, my husband and my son. Hopefully at a suburban area. Could you recommend places? What should I avoid? What should I make sure of when looking up real state?
https://www.reddit.com/r/japan/comments/17mhmb5/when_browsing_for_a_home_in_japan/
11 comments
>Could you recommend places?
Do you mean like in the whole of Japan? Have you spent time here before? Can you and your family speak Japanese?
If u want it to keep evaluating, nearby school, plenty of kindergarten/ hoikuen/ park , clinics and train station. All in walkable distance .
> To move permanently what do I need to keep in mind?
What kind of residence permit (visa) are you planning/able to obtain?
Almost anybody can buy a house here if they have the money. You don’t need to be resident.
It depends if you have the money to buy a house in cash outright or want to get a house loan.
It depends if you are planning to move to Japan and work and rent for a while or expecting to move to Japan directly into a house.
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If you have the cash to buy a house outright then you can make that happen, foreigners can buy real estate like houses in Japan.
If you are expecting to get a house loan…that is a lot more difficult for a foreigner. Your credit history/FICO mean nothing there. You would need a credit history within Japan.
If you are planning on living and working and slowly building up a credit score in Japan, then you might be able to get a loan eventually-again though, I was told it is more difficult for foreigners as banks are wary of them just leaving the country.
Moving to Japan and directly into a house with a loan is not really possible.
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Source: me, doing research on this topic and speaking to a japanese financial consultant. But, do your own research, of course. Just my very recent experience. We are planning on buying a house outright, as the loan situation is just not feasible for us.
Bro’s never been to Japan and doesn’t know the language, but is already planning on buying a house 🤦🏻♂️
Keep us informed of your progress
You’re catching some flak because this is an almost impossible question to answer.
You need to find a company here that will employ you first.
Once you have a job offer and visa squared away, you can then know whereabouts in the country to look for somewhere to live.
After all, there’s not much point buying a house in Obama, if your office is in Fukuoka. Of course, this too might actually be possible if your company allows full time WFH from the start.
There’s also the question of whether you have the money in cash to pay outright, without needing a home loan. Without PR, you may find it difficult to convince a bank to give you a home loan. But paying in cash is fine.
Normally, you would rent a place first. Then once you’re settled in, start looking for a more permanent home.
Finding international schools for your children is going to complicate matters too.
Anyway, as usual, location generally dictates house prices. As a rough guide, a new build may be anywhere from 35,000,000 JPY to 60,000,000 JPY, or quite a bit more.
You would need a visa before you can consider anything else. It would be foolish to drop money on a home that you don’t have any legal right to live in for longer than 90 days.
… what is Japan to you? If you learn everything about Japan on social media, then I can let you know it’s not the same as living here.
If you want a better life, maybe consider Scandinavian countries instead?
Learning Japanese will be a lifetime chore for each of your family members, have you even started learning japanese? If not, that’s like saying you’re going to run a marathon when you haven’t even tried a 10k run.
Why Japan? You said it’s your dream, what do you mean by that? What is your image of Japan? Why does it attract you?
Maybe buy a guide book of Japan to see what places interest you. You say you’re from Argentina in the thread so I imagine the northern areas wouldn’t be ideal, they can be very cold and the insulation in Japanese houses may as well not exist. They’re also possibly too rural for you.
You mentioned that you’re concerned about tsunamis which rules out much of the east coast but you should be fine anywhere that’s 10-15km inland. I’ll add that typhoons hit southern Japan and Okinawa pretty hard. Maybe the prefectures of Saitama, Ibaraki (particularly around Tsukuba), or Kanagawa would be worth looking into. Nagoya is a nice city with a lot of immigrants so maybe somewhere in that vicinity would suit your needs.
Japan can be very isolating for people who don’t assimilate well to the culture and language change, it may be your dream but you have to think of the experiences your family members may have. Your fantasy could easily not match reality. Would your husband be able to work in his chosen career or would you expect him to be a stay-at-home parent? Making Japanese friends is hard unless you have opportunities to meet new people and speak the language relatively well.
Would you be able to afford exorbitant fees to send your son to a private international school, or would you enroll him in a public school? Young kids usually adapt quicker than older kids, they also absorb language quicker. Are they even as interested in moving to Japan as you are?
Could you come to Japan on a trip by yourself, leaving your family at home for a few weeks while you travel around to get a feel for the country? Then maybe a second trip together focusing on areas you liked?