WHAT AND HOW DID YOU PAY FOR YOUR DETACHED HOUSE?

[Silversurfer]

I paid 22.5 million yen for a house on fifty TSUBO of land. 26 year-old house. Two floors. Two parking spaces. Small garden. Shed. Walls on three sides. Ownership 50-50 with my wife.

Got a mortgage from a small regional bank that lends money to people who can’t get a loan from a regular bank. Walked in with a nine million yen deposit. They said 7 million is enough. It was a twenty-year loan. I paid it off in fourteen. The loan was in my name. My wife was the guarantor, even though her income was a third of mine. No family members on either side were involved in any way. Renovated a lot since. You?

(One more thing. The house is now valued at ZERO YEN and the land might be worth 9 million yen on a good day.)

[RetireJapan]

Bought a 25 year old 70m2 manshon next to a station for 9m yen. Got a 30-year mortgage at 0.5% for 9.9m (to cover costs and also ended up with an extra 400,000 yen for some reason -invested it).

Similar units in the same building have been selling for 15-20m in recent years.

[Roger Van Zant]

I bought a large house on an acre of beautiful forest land for 13.5m yen in 2017.
Took out a 20-year 110% mortgage, at 1.8%, later reduced to 1.5%.
Sold the house and land in 2023 for 18m yen.
I am single with PR.
House was built in 1997.
When I sold it, the house and land had a book value of, I think, 3m yen.

[Deep Blue]

I paid 155 million for a 220sqm detached house on 55 tsubo in 2014, house was built in 1983. Location central Tokyo. Mortgage for 100m, downpayment 55m. Mortgage was with an offshore bank with a branch in Tokyo for TIBOR + 3%. Paid off in 2017 and happily debt free since then. Recently I checked appraisal values from a link found on this site and they ranged from 250 to 300 million which was a pleasant surprise. The house was purchased as a potential family home rather than expecting any appreciation in value.

[northSaver]

We bought a large house on 200 tsubo of land for 18m yen. It was 15 years old at the time but bad condition cosmetically, especially the "garden". It came with a huge shed (actually a multi-car garage but we use it as a shed). This is in Hokkaido, not Sapporo but not in the middle of nowhere either. I'd like to think it's worth more now due to all the work we've done on it, especially the outside, but really not sure. The land seems to be worth about 20m.

We paid 3m ourselves and were kindly loaned 15m by my wife's parents and grandma. It's all been paid back now. We were a bit strapped for cash at the time because we'd just bought an investment property in Sapporo, had a huge loan too. So borrowing from family interest-free was a big help.

[TokyoWart]

We paid 144 million for a new 140 sq meter three story house on 37 tsubo (122 sq meters) land in the middle of Tokyo in late 2001. The bank would not give us a mortgage without a guarantee from my employer (actually, banks would not even seriously talk to us and the workaround was to ask my employer for an introduction to their bank). The bank allowed us to eliminate that guarantee 6 years later. Only put something like 4 million as down payment because that's what the bank requested. Finished paying the mortgage in 2012.

[goodandbadjapan]

We paid (I think) 33 million for 24 year-old renovated house on 88 tsubo of land. 35 year mortgage but paid off in 11. Two floors, small garden, nice big mikan tree, 4 / 5 parking spaces. Had only had my own small English school for just less than 2 years and no PR so was lucky to get a loan at all. Think I probably overpaid for house but it was in a location which was really useful to move our business to so felt that would compensate.

[captainspoke]

We're in Kanazawa, and the second owners of an old house, I think about 130-135m2, on, IIRC, 77 tsubo of land. I think it was 25yrs old when we bought it--in 1990--so in a year or two it'll be 60.

It cost ¥22M, with 10 down, and we paid off the loan in 8-9yrs. Interest rates were higher then, I want to say 6.5%. I'm sure it's worth less today, maybe 12-15M, since it's on a slope and rebuilding would involve meeting new code. But it survived the Noto quake, a 5+ here. Property tax is now ¥50k/yr.

Old style tile roof, metal siding, carport for two cars, but space for more (once had five). We had the kitchen reformed pretty nicely about 10yrs after we bought it, but I think we're on our third set of burners/grill since then, and second oven. It's old, and not an Ichijo build(!), but we don't scrimp on heating/cooling--wife likes it warmer than I do in winter, and I like it cooler than she does in summer.

The loan was, and the title still is, in my wife's name. I was advised by someone over on r/JapanFinance that we should re-register the ownership to show our respective shares, and while their explanation made sense, since it isn't worth much, no urgency. If I die first, the house is already hers; if she does, I'll deal with whatever that entails. We've both (each?) lived in this place longer than we're ever lived anywhere else, lots of nice memories here, besides some other features that would be hard to duplicate if we were to move.

[Deep Blue]

--wife likes it warmer than I do in winter, and I like it cooler than she does in summer.

Very much ditto on this. I can’t sleep well if the temperature is over 22 in the summer but I’ll happily sleep in the when it gets a to 5 degrees in our bedroom in winter (post secondary glazing it’s not dropped below 10 this winter).

Funnily enough my son is exactly the same as me and my girls are exactly the same as their Mum. My boy is bright pink even as his sisters shiver. Quite often in the summer he’s stripped off into the night and hurled his PJs away.

They is definitely some genetic or gender component to this I feel.

[Deep Blue]

And wow - 6% interest rates! Bubble tastic. I wonder if we’ll ever see the likes again here.