Decided to buy a place - any tips on what to do/what NOT to do?

[cowcamo]

Thanks Tanuki

I did check the hazard map and confirmed that the area is low-risk. I actually rejected 2 other potential properties during my search because they were in a high-risk area near a river. Another friend also suggested checking incinerators so I asked about that there are none nearby

I haven't actually asked the neighbors, but I saw kids toys and a kid-sized bicycle next door so I reckon it should be safe enough or people wouldn't be raising young children there. The main downside for me is that it's smaller than I was hoping for, and it's right in front of a slightly busy road so traffic would be a potential issue. But it seems to be well insulated so... fingers crossed. I hope the compromises I'm making aren't too badly influenced by me just being tired of searching for so long

And the amount of money scares me lol..

Depending on how much savings I have left I'm probably going to be asking for advice on appliances in the general section of this forum or on the japanlife subreddit in the next week or two

[Roger Van Zant]

Hi all,

I posted at the start of the year when I was going to start looking for a place to buy. Then covid hit and I kind of put a pause on everything for a few months.
I started searching again with the help of an agent back in August, and this month came across a pre-built property that I've decided to go for.
It's smaller than I wanted, it's pre-built instead of me buying land + having a home designed, but from everything I've seen during searching, I just can't afford land+designed home unless I live 2+hrs away from work.
The place I've found is at least spacious enough, and though it's a couple million more than I was hoping to pay for (especially when you factor in all the registration fees, moving costs, and the 3% agent commission), I'm going to go for it. I like the area, I'm tired of searching, and want a place of my own.

I'm going in this weekend to sign the contract, do the loan evaluation, etc., and really just wanted to ask folks here if there's anything I should remember to ask about, anything I should remember to do or check? Basically any tips from people who have already gone through all this.

I am aware of the home loan tax deduction, and I plan to ask the agent more details about that. Apparently since I'm getting a place before year end, I'm eligible for the 3 year extension, so 13 years of tax deductions as opposed to 10 years.

I'm also going to go with SMBC for the loan. I originally applied for MUFG but they turned me down because the size of the land is too small to qualify

I'm also planning to go for the variable interest rate @ 35 years; I figure that after I max out the tax deductions over the 13 years I can start to pay off more quickly if I want/have extra money on hand, and if the variable rate goes up, I can refinance?

Would appreciate any advice/suggestions folks have. This is (for me) a huge sum of money and a big life change, so it's all scary new territory for me..

Thanks in advance! (and apologies if I'm a little slow in replying, I'll be crashing soon and out to city hall early tomorrow to start gathering the paperwork for the contract signing this coming weekend).

What is this "home loan tax deduction" you speak of? I bought a place back in 2017 with a 20 year loan and I have never heard of this. Can I get tax deductions by virtue of having a mortgage?

Incidentally, I am happy to help with any questions you might have about buying/owning property here. I learned a lot in the last almost four years! I have also been successful in re-zoning agricultural land to "mountain" land.

[cowcamo]

Thanks Roger. At the moment I think I'm ok since I've pretty much settled on the place I found. I'll have more questions when it comes to buying the appliances

I'm surprised you haven't heard of the deduction, it was one of the first things the housing agent mentioned to me when I was talking with them about how much I wanted to spend. I've seen others in this forum mention it too, but some English details are here, with a link to a JP site as well: https://japanpropertycentral.com/real-e ... 20purchase.

[Tanuki]

@cowcamo
You're welcome. I see you've done your homework.
Sorry my words were too vague : by "checking the neighbors", I meant "talk to them to see what kind of people they are". You're going to be stuck with them as neighbors for a long long time, so it might be good to get a general impression about them before making your decision.
I reckon that if there are kids toys next door, the occupants are probably not Yakuza types..

[RetireJapan]

From my experience the worst neighbours are antisocial recluse types: the ones that hoard garbage or don't work (hence are home all day obsessing about things).

[cowcamo]

Yeah, I was actually reassured by seeing the kids toys next door. Even though I don't have kids of my own, I generally like kids (though I've probably jinxed myself and the neighbor kids will now turn out to be absolute terrors )

I actually just did all the hanko'ing of the contract with the housing company today, next week I go meet with the bank to submit all papers for the loan application (passed the "pre-approval" last week). After that will be having another walk through of the house to check all the details and ask them to fix anything that seems off, etc. (during my first visit I noticed one of the bathroom drawers was a bit janky so I mentioned that).

Anything else I should remember to check during the final house survey? Squeaky doors, windows, etc.?

[Roger Van Zant]

Thanks Roger. At the moment I think I'm ok since I've pretty much settled on the place I found. I'll have more questions when it comes to buying the appliances

I'm surprised you haven't heard of the deduction, it was one of the first things the housing agent mentioned to me when I was talking with them about how much I wanted to spend. I've seen others in this forum mention it too, but some English details are here, with a link to a JP site as well: https://japanpropertycentral.com/real-e ... 20purchase.

Ah, now I recall something like this coming up when I purchased back in 2017.
For me, the problems were:
① "For wooden construction: Less than 20 years old"
② "Must have a certificate to show the building meets earthquake-resistant standards"

⇒ My house was 20 years and some months old when I bought it.
⇒ I couldn't get the ② above certificate without extensive and very expensive construction (still, survived the Kumamoto earthquakes back in 2016).

Thanks for your post.

[mighty58]

Anything else I should remember to check during the final house survey? Squeaky doors, windows, etc.?

Definitely go through the house as if you were an detail-obsessed Japanese shopper, and make notes of everything you want taken care of prior to purchase. The last thing they want is for you to pull out at this stage, so they should be accommodating. But aside from the show-and-dance of doing that, confirm who the madoguchi person is and how the process of getting anything fixed will work over the course of their warranty period, and how long it usually takes them to respond. In practice it will be subcontracted and then subcontracted again, and you want to confirm beforehand to avoid getting the runaround (or at least be prepared for it). And depending on what it is that needs work (e.g. kitchen vs toilet vs leaky roof) you may need to call someone else.

[cowcamo]

⇒ My house was 20 years and some months old when I bought it.
⇒ I couldn't get the ② above certificate without extensive and very expensive construction (still, survived the Kumamoto earthquakes back in 2016).

Ah.. that is unfortunate

Definitely go through the house as if you were an detail-obsessed Japanese shopper, and make notes of everything you want taken care of prior to purchase. The last thing they want is for you to pull out at this stage, so they should be accommodating. But aside from the show-and-dance of doing that, confirm who the madoguchi person is and how the process of getting anything fixed will work over the course of their warranty period, and how long it usually takes them to respond. In practice it will be subcontracted and then subcontracted again, and you want to confirm beforehand to avoid getting the runaround (or at least be prepared for it). And depending on what it is that needs work (e.g. kitchen vs toilet vs leaky roof) you may need to call someone else.

That is a good point (about the different people to contact for different issues), I'll be sure to ask! Anything I should be especially vigilant about checking that you can think of? I'm going to go through each door, windows, drawer, etc., but worried I might miss checking something obvious

[StockBeard]

Anything else I should remember to check during the final house survey? Squeaky doors, windows, etc.?

Definitely go through the house as if you were an detail-obsessed Japanese shopper, and make notes of everything you want taken care of prior to purchase. The last thing they want is for you to pull out at this stage, so they should be accommodating.

Just wanted to give examples of what my wife has asked the builders to fix (for free) over the past year since we've moved in the house:
- replacements of practically all (indoor) doors because they got slightly bent after our first 2 months due to humidity
- replacement of a plank of wood on the floor that had been damaged before we moved in. This required to unmount an entire built-in closet since it was on top of the damaged plank
- the sewage pipes were too close to "horizontal" which meant we had some issues with the flow. They did what they could to have it inclined a bit more.
- minor stuff such as some of the wallpaper, paint here and there, etc...
- a light switch they had literally forgotten to install (a tiny hole in the wall was visible where it should have been installed, and it was clearly on the house blueprints)

Edit: people have told me attention to detail is key here. Some windows might be single pane even though the whole house is advertised as "double" or "triple" pane. Some doors attachments might be missing screws. Some details might be the lower-end version of something that was advertised as high end (e.g. door with some plastic wood-like texture when the brochure says all doors are made of wood, cheap closet when the brochure says its the high-end model that closes without making any noise, wrong color for this or that closet, etc...). Not sure if this is done by mistake or by malice, but those are real life examples that happened to us or some friends.

Edit 2: some of the checks we made when moving in include those things I'm mentioning above, as well as testing that all lights/switches turn on correctly, and that all electricity plugs are actually working (by plugging your phone into each one of them to see if it charges, for example), opening/closing all windows and doors.