I’ll be upfront about something: I did not get a professional inspection on my Otaru house. I walked through it once, in winter, with snow on the ground, and looked at the rooms, turned on a few faucets, checked that the lights worked. Brief. Cursory. The kind of walkthrough where you’re already emotionally committed and …
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A 40-year-old house in the United States is normal. A 40-year-old house in England is new. A 40-year-old house in Japan is a tear-down. This is the single most disorienting thing about Japanese real estate for Western buyers. The house you’re looking at — solid foundation, intact roof, functioning plumbing — is valued at zero. …
Read more “Japanese Houses Are Not Built to Last — And That’s the Point”
Maybe. But probably not the kind of money you’re imagining. When people hear “I bought a house in Japan for $20,000,” the next sentence out of their mouth is usually about Airbnb. They picture a ski-season rental near Niseko, a canal-district listing pulling ¥15,000 a night, passive income flowing while they sit on a beach …
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You buy a house in Otaru. You fly home. The house sits. This is the reality for a significant number of foreign buyers in Japan. Maybe you bought with a five-year plan — retire there eventually, fix it up on annual trips, let it wait. Maybe you already spend winters in Hokkaido but live somewhere …
Read more “What Happens If You Buy Property and Don’t Live There?”
Series: Buying Cheap Property in Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan — Article 10 of 30 Nobody writes about this part. There are hundreds of articles about finding property in Japan, negotiating prices, understanding the legal process. But at some point you have to actually move $20,000 or $30,000 across the Pacific and into someone’s Japanese bank account, …
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Series: Buying Cheap Property in Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan — Article 9 of 30 When I tell people what I pay in annual property tax on my house in Otaru, they assume I’m leaving something out. There must be a homeowner’s association fee, or a special assessment, or some other line item I’m forgetting. There isn’t. …
Read more “Property Taxes in Japan: What You Actually Pay Each Year”