I bought a house in Japan without speaking fluent Japanese. I can tell you exactly how that went: the purchase itself was fine. Living in the house afterward was where things got complicated. The buying process and the living process require different levels of language ability, and most guides about buying property in Japan blur …
Read more “The Language Barrier: How Much Japanese Do You Actually Need?”
The most common question I get from people interested in buying cheap property in Japan isn’t about property taxes or visa requirements or earthquake codes. It’s this: “How do I actually find someone who will help me do this?” It’s a fair question. The Japanese real estate system is efficient, well-regulated, and almost entirely designed …
Read more “Finding a Real Estate Agent Who Works with Foreigners”
Ninety minutes from Otaru, in a valley surrounded by volcanoes, a small ski town became an international case study in what happens when the rest of the world discovers a place before the prices catch up. Niseko’s story is worth understanding if you’re thinking about buying property in Otaru. Not because Otaru is the next …
Read more “The Niseko Effect: What Happened Next Door and What It Means for Otaru”
People ask me what it costs to live in Otaru. I tell them the number and they think I’m lying. I’m not lying. The math is just different here. It’s different in a way that makes you realize how much of what you’ve been paying in rent or mortgage or “cost of living” back home …
Read more “Cost of Living in Otaru vs. Anywhere You’ve Ever Lived”
Hokkaido gets the lightest, driest powder snow on earth. This is not local boosterism. It’s meteorology. Cold Siberian air masses cross the Sea of Japan in winter, picking up moisture from the relatively warm sea surface. When that moisture-laden air hits Hokkaido’s mountain ranges, it dumps. Ten to fifteen meters of accumulated snowfall per season, …
You buy a house for practical reasons. You stay for other ones. I bought my house in Otaru because the price was right and the train to Sapporo takes thirty-five minutes. I stay because of the uni bowl at Sankaku Market, the gas lamps along the canal at dusk, and the particular silence of a …
Read more “The Food, the Festivals, and the Things That Make You Stay”