Buying Real Estate in Japan
Buying a house in Japan is one thing we have been thinking about recently. We probably wont be in a position were we can do this for a year or so, but if you have been living in Japan for a while, and are planning to stay longer then it certainly is an option worth looking into.
I know a couple of foreigners who bought property here during the bubble. At that time property prices were astronomically high; heights that real estate property were soon to rapidly descend from. This left property owners with little choice but to stay in Japan and continue to pay off hefty mortgages. The option of selling their property would have meant huge losses.
Now after 14 or 15 years of declining property prices, valuations are starting to rise again - although at this stage only for residential property, and only in the major metropolitan areas of Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya. This coupled with the fact that interest rates (one can currently get a loan at around 3.5% here in Japan) look set to rise as a result of Bank of Japan policy changes in the near future, make buying property now an attractive proposition.
The Japan Times has a story today “Big-city land prices up for the first time since 1990” with more information on the current situation.
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