Australian buys house for $30,000 in Japan

Knock off the 2 zeroes and that's the AUD equivalent. Holy Sh##

 

Prevalent Asian workaholic culture pretty much pervasive all over Asia, especially pronounced in more developed countries like Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, parts of China, Singapore, Taiwan etc. The whole don't leave work before your boss etc. and doing "bull **** work" just to make yourself look busy/justify your own position.

The problem with Japan is a lot of manual stuff useless processes is still seen as "gold" and they seem to be stuck in the 80s and 90s at best, so have the salaries. Dare I say it, Japan is probably stuck in the middle income bracket. I did a 3 month secondment stint at NTT in the early 2010s, damn it was an eye opener to say the least.

Even if you compare Aust life/work balance vs European or Americans and we win hands down. We just don't appreciate how good we have it here.

 

I appreciate it.
Recent health issue… thank goodness for Australian Health System. We are up there.

 

And they come to Australia. In many cases, have waaaayyyy better work ethic than local Australians. Finance manager at my last company was Chinese. All her team was Chinese. They were all brilliant to work with. Quality, timeliness... and lovely people. Manager demanded quality, she got it. I found her team such a pleasure to work with. There was always things that needed to be done, but that's all good by me. And I think if they worked in China, it would just be considered as normal. I certainly liked working to that standard.

DBA though, he was not in this team. He has a different ethnic origin. He was either very slack or useless as a DBA. Drove me nuts.

And many years ago, I was working in a JAPA (Japan, Asia Pacific, Australia) team for Express. The Japanese team member, whenever I asked for anything, he'd come back to me the same day with what I was after. Maybe I should have said to him it's not expected today. But he always did that. Now in hindsight, it would simply have been part of the regular long hours people always do over there

 

If you have ever tried to change money you will notice this. In thailand you had over $100 and they count it and give you 2300B. In Japan you fill in a form, show ID, someone checks it, passes it to someone else who checks it and then eventually gives you the yen. less a hefty 'fee'.

Go to a shopping centre and there are 20 guards waving red battons in the carpark to tell you where the entrance is etc

Over employment

 

When Covid hit, we moved to Japan for few months which we ended staying up two years. If you have a Japanese spouse it helps a lot. If you need to transfer/change money, Wise or NAB are quick and the best, no need for cash. As a matter of fact, Wise takes 10mins to see your money into a JP bank account and you can get a credit card you can locally use (try getting that as a foreigner in any JP banks).

As an Aussie foreigner, you have 50% chance of being an English teacher or get into the auto/parts industry. I did the later plus it blended well into the family business.

Medical system is good, cheap but my experience and recommendation is always to get two or three different opinions. Bigger hospitals are better than the 'inaka" ones.

Our airlines let go a lot of people when thing hit the fan but in Japan the two big airlines didn't fire anyone. In fact, some of the personnel was offered to help the shrines with customer service. Being part of the team is important there i'd say.
Salaries are low, very low and long working hours.

There is a lot of paperwork and i thought so at first it's overemployment but it's also good to be part of society, plus they live to 100 where as we are looking for second hand knee replacement at 65-ish Our great-grandma kicked the bucket last month at 92 and she was a cracker until the last moment.

After Covid finished, first thing we noticed when we came back is that prices are higher than 2 years ago. We decided to buy an old apartment in @datto 's favorite street in Liverpool (big fan of yours mate ) at a discounted price what the previous owner paid and it's much better than what it used to be in the 90s or earlier. Fast forward a year and a half, rents here have grown 30-40% where as capital growth is merely 5-6%.

With the yen being low, we are looking into the Japanese market and maybe go again one day. Interest is nothing compared to here and rents are usually higher than the monthly installments. Another good thing is land started to appreciate more than before. If you have a 10 spot parking place that is rented in a medium size city, that's 1000$ a month by doing nothing.

I also think Japan will become a more investor friendly place in the following years as businesses exit other Asian countries. The chip company opened and other will be relocated and it's a strategic tactic.

Pension wise it's yeah naah. Ours is much better.

Been a while since my last visit here. I did learn a lot from many of you. Thanks

 

The concern with living in japan long term is the inheritance tax.

 

There are loads of foreign property locations that are very affordable and produce secure and good income. The biggest obstacle is generally the following:

• Ownership laws that limit or prohibit foreign ownership
• Misinformation. eg Remember the cheap US houses. Sometimes the costs of the armed troops needed to collect rent outweighs the value
• Punitive taxes and fees that dont always stop a deal
• Language can pose some issues. Culture too. Will an aussie owner be taken seriously ? Or for a ride ?
• Difficulties with geographic distance + landguage and being taken seriously. Racism too. Not all foreign people are nice and welcoming if you buy their cheap property.
• Conditions on renovation / use eg $1 euro homes in Italy
• Finance...The biggest of the lot
  • Foreign banks wont lend based on Australian income
  • Australian banks wont accept foreign property security

Cash buyers can often find it easier.

 

I dont know the laws/rules for foreign ownership,
but

I use the example of buying a super regional house for $100k $150k in australia as a comparable example

its cheap because no one wants them, its cheap because its hard to resell, there is no rental crisis over there, its harder to rent

the only time it will work for you is if you are happy living in it, and arent worried about yield, resell, CG

 

ATM the exchange rate is the best it’s been for about 30 years for changing AUD into yen. A$1 is about 102 yen

now those cheap houses are cheaper

 

It's 103.4 at the close. AUDJPY was about 107 in 2007. The carry trade unwound violently when the GFC hit.

 

It would be nice to get a little bit more specific about where in Japan you could get a place for lets say $100k AUD.
Im very well versed in thailand about the price differences between Bangkok / Pattaya / Issan and also in italy between Cities like Rome and Naples, Milan or Calabria.

How close to a large capital city can a foreigner buy in their name for about $100k aud.. Cherry Picking $1 houses in italy dont really help, I just drove 30kms up a mountain to see my family home town and you would probably go mad up there but in the centre of naples you can get hundreds of apartments for under 100k aud.

Ive often been considering spending a month in an Airbnb in Japan but have really only been to Disney + Tokyo as a tourist before.

 

$50k studio apartments in Osaka city would be common

 

Im guessing thats not a 40sqm studio... Worth a look maybe... hows strata costs over there?

 

Prob more like 26 sq m. You should be able to find some for sale online.

 

Anyone can buy, even on a tourist visa. Settlement is less than a week, you get the keys in 3 days or so. As a foreigner, you have the same rights as a Japanese in terms of buying a house. Getting loan though is impossible, unless you have a stable job for few years, a JP spouse or a company. You can use your super though for investments and then the banks see you through a much nicer lens.
Unlike here, in Japan the renters have to fix stuff or pay from their pocket if something needs fixing (to a degree though) which is a cure to anyone's allergy of constant tradies costs (no hard feelings). You also have "key money" and "Thank you landlord for renting your place to us" money which are considered as a gift. This is not refundable, not our bond money.
You also can't serve the renter 30 days notice that they need to pack and leave. The renter has much stronger rights in terms of contract rather than here. That's why they don't have so much tent cities as we have here.

You need to do research if you decide about Japan. Some areas you will not see any CG, in fact you'll see a double digit decline. Areas where there's an army base, Amazon warehouse, Costco etc., is a good indicator. For example, Yokohama is better option than Kawasaki even though Kawasaki is closer to Tokyo. Another example is Odawara which had a rise in CG because Amazon opened up there.

Buying 10 mins walk to a train station or 5 mins to a bus stop is always favorable. So yeah, the cheapy ones in the middle of no where it's good only for holiday/villa lifestyle or if you live in it.
Having a rental parking next to a famous shrine is much better investment than a flat in central Tokyo. At certain holidays, some (but not all of course) of the parking places make 20k profit in a day. I wish i knew this many years ago.

As for the weak yen, i think it will continue a little bit more and has to stop or normalize soon. During Covid, JP funds bought a lot in the Australian (share) market (others too) when the AUDJPY was less than 60Yen for the 1AUD. Stocks increased in value, and so does their profit from FX difference.

Interesting times.