For some background, I love cars and have spent a good amount of time driving in Japan. I will be moving to Kanagawa on SOFA and my hope is to find a reasonable house with at least a car port about an hour from Tokyo. I'm hoping to get a reasonable sports car that I can commute in, drive out to Hakone, and maybe even do a track day at Fuji Speedway sometime. I understand some of the specifics of owning cars in Japan such as Shaken, parking certificates, taxes, cost of larger cars etc. and I have a pretty wide budget range for supporting my hobby.
I was generally just looking for some good advice on living with a performance oriented car in Japan. Space for two cars would be nice but I realize a house with one car is already a stretch for someone on SOFA. Financing wise I don't mind paying cash for a car but have a U.S. based bank option if I loan anything 5 million yen plus.
I was also looking for any general advice on being a car enthusiast in Japan such as:
- I'm used to doing 80% of the work on my cars but I realize Japan probably isn't the place to do janky car port or street-side maintience. Besides that, is there anything I should look out for when considering rentals with parking options?
- Generally how hard is it to sell a car as a foreigner in Japan? All of there cars I am considering have a linear depreciation curb but there's the fear that I get stuck in a rough spot selling the car when I need to move
- I'm pretty firm on wanting to rent a house but are their typically good options for renting a spot in a garage in the greater Tokyo area which one financially suck? Or should I stick to homes that have parking already
I appreciate any input!
by oneronin