All Guides

What you can verify from public sources before contacting an agent (building age, hazard maps, zoning, condo fees), and which questions to leave for the professionals.

Ownership rights, visa status, and land restriction points to verify.

Offer, contract, deposit, financing, registration, and closing flow.

What the required "important matters" explanation covers, and what a foreign buyer can ask and pause.

Why a cheaper listing may be leasehold (借地権) rather than freehold (所有権) — ground rent, renewal and consent fees, financing limits, and what to check before you commit.

Fixed asset tax, city planning tax, the monthly management fee (kanri-hi), and the repair reserve fund — what each recurring cost is, who charges it, and what to check before you buy.

Why some vacant homes (akiya) are listed so cheaply, the red flags behind the price, and what a realistic renovation and holding cost actually looks like.

How the 1981 and 2000 seismic-code revisions let you read a building’s construction year — and why the year is a clue, not a safety guarantee.

Running a Japanese property from abroad: appointing a management company and the two separate tax agents (nozei kanrinin) a non-resident owner needs, how rental income is withheld and taxed, and who to line up before you leave.

A framework for comparing a resort market, a big regional city, and central Tokyo by the demand, seasonality, running costs, and currency risk that actually drive returns. General background, not investment advice.

Eligibility, documents, pre-approval, and lender checks to prepare for.

Decode 1LDK notation, tatami sizing, and layout logic before your first viewing.

Why Japanese buildings depreciate by convention rather than defect, where the value actually sits (the land), and how that gives a buyer negotiating leverage.

An editorial view — not a data score — of the neighborhoods that tend to work well for foreign residents, weighed by English-friendly services, international community, transport, and atmosphere.

Structural standards, inspection options, and the depreciation question for foreign buyers.

Turn neighborhood scenes into a pre-contact checklist.

Read a Japanese city the way a superintendent reads a building — a signals framework for foreign buyers and renters, with Nagareyama and Utsunomiya's Lightline as worked examples.

What a Hokkaido winter reveals about a building's roof, boiler, vestibule, and pipes before you ever ask a professional to look.