RetireJapan

Shop around a lot. It will take time to find exactly what it is that you value and what you are willing to sacrifice for your budget. In terms of the market value, houses will always fall in value (some less so), but the land itself in the 23-ku retain or increase their value primarily based around:...

I just signed up for the revamped Amex Gold card. High annual fee, but lots of perks that make up for it. There's also a new account bonus that is US-like in its largesse (120k points).

Anyone with a standalone house living in Tokyo should seriously consider installing a solar array. The city government subsidies for batteries covers 2/3 of the cost, and separate wards also tend to offer their own subsidies on top of that. There are also green subsidies like the こどもエコすまい project w...

I think the bigger reason to have a battery must be to store electricity produced when the grid doesn’t need extra power and then release it when it does? Exactly. You can actually set it to various functions depending on your preference. Like if you want at least half a battery charged at all time...

the ability to run off the grid during a blackout Is this because of the battery? When I was looking at solar a few years ago, I was told that if you were connected to the grid the panels wouldn't power the house during blackouts (other than one plug or something). Always struck me as strange, as t...

Anyone with a standalone house living in Tokyo should seriously consider installing a solar array. The city government subsidies for batteries covers 2/3 of the cost, and separate wards also tend to offer their own subsidies on top of that. There are also green subsidies like the こどもエコすまい project wh...

They know how much you've put in so it would be trivial for them to start your "Lifetime NISA allowance used" to have a value at the start. They'd have to figure out how to handle the people who have it beyond the maxed out limit but I don't think that's possible (NISA started 2014 so its...

Limiting it to 12 million for "growth investments" really makes this change next to useless for those who have been investing in NISA since its launch, as continuous rollovers mean that anyone maxing out their account is probably already close to or exceeding that limit with how the market...

Would be interested to know as well! Am in a similar situation, deciding between Ichijo and another house builder.

This is correct. SPDR 1557 is the only legal way for Americans to invest in US market-tracking ETFs in Japan. I’ve used this method since 2013 when NISA first appeared, and it also works for regular, non-NISA accounts too. The 10% withholding tax on dividends is punitive, but not a big deal to me as...