Need advice on Japanese mortgage: married to Japanese, building a house, still waiting for PR

11 comments

1. ~700m? Am I missing something like buying an entire tower mansion building?

2. I’m a foreigner, had 2 mortgages, put both names on the property and on the mortgages. Husband is Japanese. I’m American. You can only have one mortgage and that bank will hold the lien. I used 2 different banks. I put about 25% down on each property and had no problem getting the mortgages. I do not have PR, not going to get it, but I’ve lived here for many decades. I only get fixed mortgage rates. As Japan has just increased the interest rate and will probably do so again, I’d get a fixed rate only.

3. I can’t speak to your situation exactly, but Suruga gave me a lone with Japanese spouse but no PR.

4. What did your builder or agent say? Did they recommend going with any particular bank? You could try the major banks such as Mizuho, MUFG, or SMBC. I’m (non-PR) married to a PR holder and received mortgage offers from all three. With SBI, I passed the initial screening but failed the life insurance application. They didn’t state the reason and told me that I can’t apply with them anymore. So better to have more options than only SBI.

   That said, I’m not sure how easy it would be to obtain a loan in your case, especially since the house would be located outside a major hub and may be viewed by banks as a highly depreciating asset.

   One thing that is worth considering is how confident you are about working remotely in the future. At some point, you may need to change jobs, and then you could find yourself tied to Nagano. I had a similar dilemma: my current workplace is fine with fully remote work, but I couldn’t be sure that the next one would be the same, so I ultimately decided to buy a house in Tokyo.

   That said, I’m still thinking about buying a relatively inexpensive second house in Gunma or Nagano.

5. 7000万 to build a house? That’s at least double the standard, if not triple.

6. My situation was pretty similar to yours, except that my wife didn’t have any income to speak of, so the loan was only in my name. My loan is with SBI Shinsei. A couple of years ago there was a very knowledgeable and patient SBI employee who spoke English well, who answered all of my questions. One approach would be to call and see if she (or someone similar) is still in the home loan department.

   The payments to the builder, which are fairly standard as I understand, were like this (as far as I can recall):

   * 30% of the contract amount at the start.

   * 50% at the mid point. These two we paid cash, but I suppose could have used a bridge loan if necessary

   * 20% at the end. This 20% we didn’t pay, SBI Shinsei did.

   Later, the loan amount minus 20% appeared in my bank account.

   As construction progressed, we requested add-ons that increased the total expense, but since these were not in the contact, they were outside the scope of the loan. Our builder allowed us to pay the add-ons at the end.

   Good luck!

7. 700万 for a land seems super cheap. I really need to start looking further away from big cities.

   Sorry that’s not answering your question but the only advice I can give is, try all your options and stick with the one that succeed. PR only gives you more options with your loan but is not a strict requirement. Having your name on a property is a big point when it comes to visa and law.

8. Have you tried mizuho? They are pretty friendly.

9. Answering your question, the cheapest will be your wife take the loan. But also the most risky option (to her). Those things are better divided equally to avoid any relationship strains.

   Otherwise, I would wait for the PR result. Even though it’s certain the interest rates will go up a lot, it is still likely to be cheaper than you taking a less favorable loan right now.

   Now for some unwanted opinion: isn’t that too much for a house given your salaries and savings? Or do the savings number do not include your investments? My family income is about 20% lower than yours and we are finding a 5800万 house to be on the very limit of what we could pay for mortgage. And that is considering we paid half of it already in cash, have significant more savings in investments and other stuff, and half of that 5800万 was the plot, which is on a good area and likely to keep its value in the future.

   When I asked people in the japanfinance sub, most people there were spending even less than me on a mortgage and had much more in savings. Building a 7000万 house on a 700万 land just seems like a really bad idea unless that’s only a tiny percentage of your savings or income.

   Finally, is the plot really 3000m2 or is that one extra zero? I can’t imagine how expensive it would be to maintain a 3km2 parcel of land, that’s a few city blocks!

10. I recently got approved from sbi for 57m with no down payment in Tokyo. No pr but have been working for 2.5 years for the same company have 7m base 8m approx with bonus salary. Wife Japanese and two kids. I took out the loan with only my name on it. They told me that this would be the limit I can get for my circumstance. It was approved without any additional call, documents, questions though. 70m might be tough but 60m might be okay for you.

11. I was in a similar situation when I applied for mortgage, albeit with a longer tenure in my current company. Mizuho Bank allowed me to apply for their preferred rate while my PR application was still pending, and treated my application as if I had PR. YMMV but I’d suggest you talk to a few more banks. Good luck!

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