Tag - property

 
 

PROPERTY

Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Dec 2, 2013
Water, water, it's not everywhere
There are aspects of everyday life that renters take for granted, such as access to utilities. Of course, renters pay for their own electricity and gas, and, depending on where they live, they may be billed for water and sewerage. Homeowners pay for these services, too, but there are extra financial...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Nov 4, 2013
Warming up for the winter chill
In 2000 we moved into an apartment in Tokyo run by the semi-public housing corporation UR. It was new and had a natural-gas heating system. Unlike other gas systems we'd used in the past, however, this one heated water that was then circulated to outlets in different rooms in the apartment. Direct gas...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Sep 30, 2013
The build-up to get that housing loan
Several years ago, we went to a bank in Tokyo that was advertising housing loans with easy terms. Though we weren't shopping for a loan at the time we wanted to see what was needed in order to apply for one. The bank's approval criteria seemed simple enough: If you made at least ¥3 million a year, you...
Japan Times
BUSINESS
Sep 13, 2013
Tokyo bests New York, Paris for property rents
Tokyo is the best city for residential-property returns, broker Savills PLC said, because Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policies are stimulating the economy and increasing investor confidence.
JAPAN
Sep 10, 2013
The biggest Olympic beneficiaries? Tokyo Bay developers
Tokyo Bay area property prices stand to benefit the most in the lead-up to the 2020 Olympic Games, adding to the recovery in the capital's real estate values after 20 years of declines
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Sep 2, 2013
Housing loans: Nothing is 100 percent easy
The government has yet to confirm the timing of the approved consumption tax increase from 5 to 8 percent. It's slated to take place next April but there is still fear that the economy is too frail to withstand the effect the added tax might have on actual consumption. Consequently, the government is...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Aug 5, 2013
The aging issue of Chiba New Town
The Chiba New Town development project was begun in the late 1960s by the Chiba prefectural government, and a decade later, joined by the Land Development Corporation, the government housing organ that would morph into the Urban Renaissance (UR) Agency in 2004. It is located in the northern part of the...
BUSINESS / Economy
Jul 17, 2013
Property transactions jump 50% on 'Abenomics': JLL
Property transactions jumped 50 percent in the first half of 2013, headed for the highest level in five years, amid efforts by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to boost the economy, Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. said.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Jul 2, 2013
Moved by the benefits of mobile-home housing
The model house sat on an empty patch of brown land along a commercial stretch of road in southern Ibaraki Prefecture. Few people would have identified it as a model house. It had a forlorn, out-of-place look to it. Technically, it was a mobile home — "trailer house," in Japanese parlance — propped...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Jun 4, 2013
Sometimes it pays to look on the bright side
The flyers were provocative: New houses priced at more than ¥35 million, but the builder promised that the mortgage would amount to ¥0 a month. A free house is obviously too good to be true, but we decided to check out the merchandise to see what the story was.
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
May 14, 2013
On uneven ground: landfill property pitfalls
After the real estate agent unlocked the front door, the musty smell told us that the house had not been aired for some time. He laid out slippers for us and proceeded to raise the shutters and open the windows. Then, upon entering the kitchen he exclaimed, "Katamuite iru" ("It's uneven").
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Apr 2, 2013
When remodeling isn't quite a home improvement
A year ago we looked at a 20-year-old apartment after it had just gone on sale in the city where we live, which is about an hour from Tokyo. It was large and sunny, but the walls needed to be re-papered and the floors replaced. The realtor told us that the ¥11.6 million asking price included the cost...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Mar 5, 2013
Buying property in the age of Abenomics
According to most business media, now is the time to act if you are thinking about buying a home. Though the Liberal Democratic Party has yet to confirm that it will go ahead with the consumption tax increases the Democratic Party of Japan passed last year, it seems likely that the first hike to 8 percent...
Japan Times
COMMUNITY / How-tos / HOME TRUTHS
Feb 4, 2013
Building your home can come at quite a cost
People in the market for new single-family houses usually don't worry as much about the land those houses occupy because they tend to work with developers, who purchase huge tracts and then subdivide them. The customer buys the land and the house as a package, though the authorities see it as two purchases...
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 28, 2008
Ups and downs on Japan's property ladder
Foreigners and the Japanese property market — the two sound like unlikely bedfellows, but in recent years their "liaisons" have been the focus of much media attention — and not all of it positive.
Japan Times
LIFE / Lifestyle
Sep 28, 2008
Tales of experience from foreign homeowners
The following are the experiences of four foreigners who have ventured into property purchase in Japan.

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