Mortgage in Japan

[DeathAdder]

Interesting that so many of you have or are considering buying in Japan. I only briefly and reluctantly considered it; fortunately my wife is no longer interested in doing so. The main reasons were that the houses themselves get worse and worse as time goes on and therefore become worth less and less, and also the lack of size, crapness of the insulation and proximity of other houses. That said, yours looks in a nice location, Yakumo, with nothing next to it on three sides.

Properties (currently rented out) in other countries for us. One of my friends has bought a condominium here. It's a beautiful flat in a building that looks like a hotel. He didn't realise when his wife committed them to it that he would have to pay 40,000 yen a month "service charges". Not only that, it has lost about 7% of its value - a cool 1.5 million yen.

Yakumo, does your wife have to get up and take part in the communal cleaning every so often? My wife tells me that is the main drawback to owning a house here, as opposed to a flat.

Supergoal, this might be a good place to ask questions about getting a mortgage

http://forum.gaijinpot.com/forumdisplay.php?6-Accommodation

[Yakumo]

The main reasons were that the houses themselves get worse and worse as time goes on and therefore become worth less and less, and also the lack of size, crapness of the insulation and proximity of other houses. That said, yours looks in a nice location, Yakumo, with nothing next to it on three sides.

Houses in japan are generally complete cheap **** unless you go with a good company. My house should have cost 30 million yen to build but since my wife works in the company that built it we got a few million off. We will have to change some of the roof beams in 25 years because of the dumb way Japanese build houses but he rest will be fine for 60 years. I probably won't be around by then anyway since I'd be 97.

The best thing about getting your own house built is that you are involved from the design stage all the way to the very end. I'd go down visiting the site every week while it was being built. I still have photos and videos of it being built. There’s a great one where they are just putting in the upstairs floor but still no stair case so I had to use a ladder to get up there. The builders hated me though because I was really picky and made them build everything at least 30cm higher than average because I'm 180cm tall and the typical Japanese high of counters, cupboards and doors just wouldn't do my back any good at all.

Yakumo, does your wife have to get up and take part in the communal cleaning every so often? My wife tells me that is the main drawback to owning a house here, as opposed to a flat.

Yeah, it's just around our area and only twice a year. It's a cool idea because it keeps the area you live in looking good. I don't do it because I can't be arsed waking up at 6 in the morning but I do hose down the area's garbage collection point every time I was my car since it's on the other side of the wall. So I can get away with not doing the early morning cleaning crap. Still, if I had to I'd rather wake up at 6am to clean twice a year than pay 40'000 yen a month costs. Owning a house blows away living in a Flat, Mansion (as the Japanese call it). I can play games. movies, music as loud as I want. No annoying banging from the floor above. My own personal land. my own driveway. And best of all, no chance of some idiot settting fire to his home then taking mine and everyone elses home with it.

About houses being close to each other. Well, each city and even different parts of the same city all have their own rules about building. The area I live in is classes as a "beauty" spot so houses must have open space around them to keerp the "free fresh open" feel of the area. Or at least that's what we were told.

[tokyochojin]

Supergoal that is sweet that they are giving you the land. However, we looked into it but the way mortgages are arranged here the fact that you are tied down till you are drawing your pension really put me off. As we are, we rent a 4 year old house in Tokyo, five minutes from my daughter's school and the station, and although we are basically paying the owners mortgage for him, he is required to pay for any problems or general repairs which is a big plus in a country where they build houses to fail, just so they can get paid to rebuild them.

I have no qualms about renting as we are always guaranteed a new looking place, plus it gives us freedom to move around, unlike my mother-in-law who is tied down to a massive mortgage despite them wanting to move abroad. Like the poster mentioned above, unlike the UK, houses are worth f-all once you move in as the custom is to rebuild your own, so you gotta make sure its for you.

I guess it all depends on how much you will save by moving to that land, whether you can live in the countryside, how close it is to the hoikuen etc. and how much you are cert that you will not be moving in the future. Good luck.

[Yakumo]

I'll tell you one thing for sure, if that land you are using was one used for growing rice or anything really, you are going to be well F**ked when it comes to building the house. The ground will need some major work to make it suitable for building on. As mentioned, my wife works for the house building section of Mitsubishi (they don't actually use the Mitsubishi name just like Kirin beer doesn't or Uni don't. They're all still Mitsubishi though) and was telling me last night that you really should look in to the ground you'll be using before you do anything. Also, it's well worth having dampers fitted to the house in case of an earthquake. While they won't stop the house falling over if a really big one hits, it really will help with smaller ones. Homes with no dampers WILL fall when hones with will keep standing and need very little or no repair.