RetireJapan

My wife and I are considering buying a house now that I have PR and we have some kids. We have a few basic ideas of what we would like; natural light, an island counter kitchen, a decent sized living room and a small garden. I'd also be interested in insulation and maybe solar panels.

The problem we're having is how to take the first step. My wife would like a new designer home, whereas I think I'm more for a prefab or something in the middle. For the homeowners on here - how did you start looking? We're considering going to a Suumo counselling counter because we don't really have anything else to go on. Any advice appreciated!

Just open suumo app on your smartphone, check the price for new houses in your desired area with desired params. In case of designer house add, I don't know, at least 1k man or so? And then compare with your budget. Suumo can simulate monthly payments for you.
Theoretically, you can get loan 8 times your income, but 4-5 times would be more advisable.
After you apply for some house via suumo the agent will contact you, and you can ask for all kind of info, including address.
Ask them for hazard map, neighborhood report and population report for the area (they have system to generate those).

For designer house (注文住宅) you need to search for land first.

You have several options in Japan:

-buy an existing 'used' house
-buy an existing new house
-order a stock house from a major builder
-design your own house with an architect

Generally speaking the first option is one of the best value, as the previous owner paid for the depreciation and you should be able to get a good deal. Houses built this century should have decent earthquake resistance and may have good insulation/ventilation/etc.

Buying a new pre-built house is IMO the worst option, as you don't get to choose anything and will have to pay for the depreciation yourself. Also these tend to be built as cheaply as possible so that the builder can make a profit.

Most people order a stock house: this is expensive but not as much as designing your own, you get the warranty, and you can customise it to a certain extent. I almost bought a house from Ichijo and was impressed with their price for the specs (very limited customization though).

Designing your own is the Cadillac of houses, but is usually more expensive.

Depending on where you live, there should be large exhibition parks where a number of companies have exhibition houses that you can wander around. Usually all of the big nationwide builders should have a house to look around and there may be some smaller local companies as well.
If you find a company that you like the look of, they will probably invite you to view actual completed houses and start suggesting land options.
Especially if you're thinking of designing your own house, I think it's a good idea to take some time to check out plenty of companies and visit a number of properties that they've constructed.
A lot of companies will have flashy exhibition houses but don't seem so good once you see houses they've built on a more realistic budget.

Some major points to consider to start with are construction (steel frame houses are stronger but usually much more expensive), degree of design freedom (some companies will give you complete freedom while others have more restrictions or offer template houses for cheaper), and land/location (a lot of the best land tends to be 建築条件付き, which means that a builder has bought the land in advance and will only sell it with the condition that you use the same company to build your house).

Don't choose to live in a flood plain or an area subject to landslides 🏔

Tsunamis and volcanoes are also best avoided.

Earthquakes 🏚 and typhoons too, but that comes with the territory

When we built our house, my wife and I discussed everything together of course, but I was happy to let her make all the decisions. Twelve years on, hindsight shows us that we could have done one or two things differently, but those are minor issues that don't affect our day-to-day happiness. From my viewpoint, letting the missus build the house she wanted was the right thing to do.

Meanwhile, to answer your actual question:
You can test out each of the options RetireJapan suggests upthread without having to commit to anything. For buying an existing house, Suumo and Homes let you search using all sorts of parameters; for building a new house, you can visit 住宅展示場 and see what you get for what price. Take your time and you'll get a feel for what your budget will buy.

When my wife and I decided to move out of the rental game, we first found land in the area we wanted to live... Mountain views, easy access to the city, highways & shinkansen. A spot between all our favourite outdoor activity locations, and, having worked in the area, I knew the schools were decent too. We then visited the local records office and checked all the historical natural disaster data for the area -no flooding, landslides, or earthquake damage. There was nothing, which was a big relief as the plot has a beautiful river 5minutes walk away...
The company selling the land suggested a local architect that had his own construction crew... We had a meeting, he showed us plans, we talked budget and got to tweak his designs to our needs... One example being the small alcove a lot of Japanese homes have for the indoor shrine to dead relatives... We didn't want/need that so spun it 180degrees, put a sliding-door on it, and now we have an extra big cupboard for all the skis, snowboards, rafts and kayaks etc. facing the genkan... We also didn't want/need a full length balcony etc. So these little things could all be changed and help reduce the cost. After all, houses here in Japan aren't investments, right? We wanted to keep costs down but still have all the usual name brand appliances, and internal fittings...
We got to visit a couple of his previous builds and talk to the owners... Everything looked great, and the reviews were all positive so we made a deal. A 4LDK for ¥10million.
8 years on and we've had no issues -the house is solid. Looks like it did the day we bought it! It came with the 10year warranty which we haven't had to use...
Mortgage was 35yr so I pay ¥3man a month which is way less than our old rent and leaves me plenty for the new additions to the family and retirement savings, plus all those toys that help make living in my prefecture so much fun... If we had gone with one of the big-name housing companies, our mortgage could easily have been double...
Have a look at local options if you can, you may luck out and find a real winner! Good luck!

RetireJapan wrote: ↑Mon Nov 09, 2020 5:23 am You have several options in Japan:

-buy an existing 'used' house
-buy an existing new house
-order a stock house from a major builder
-design your own house with an architect

Generally speaking the first option is one of the best value, as the previous owner paid for the depreciation and you should be able to get a good deal. Houses built this century should have decent earthquake resistance and may have good insulation/ventilation/etc.

Buying a new pre-built house is IMO the worst option, as you don't get to choose anything and will have to pay for the depreciation yourself. Also these tend to be built as cheaply as possible so that the builder can make a profit.

Having looked at a lot of used houses, I can say that there is a lot delusional home owners who valuate their houses way too high. Many times tate-uri ones looked like a better deal.
Just one recent example. There is a quite big bunjo-jutaku, where new houses are still being built,and they currently have a couple of unsold houses. So this guy, who bought their house about a year ago wants to sell it for higher price than the unsold houses. And mind you, its location is worse than the unsold houses, and the other params are about same. The only reasonable explanation to this would be him upgrading the house substantially, otherwise, delusional, like I said...

Ori wrote: ↑Sun Nov 15, 2020 7:28 am Having looked at a lot of used houses, I can say that there is a lot delusional home owners who valuate their houses way too high. Many times tate-uri ones looked like a better deal.
Just one recent example. There is a quite big bunjo-jutaku, where new houses are still being built,and they currently have a couple of unsold houses. So this guy, who bought their house about a year ago wants to sell it for higher price than the unsold houses. And mind you, its location is worse than the unsold houses, and the other params are about same. The only reasonable explanation to this would be him upgrading the house substantially, otherwise, delusional, like I said...

Just skip the delusional ones, or offer them what you think is a fair price. They might end up calling you back six months later