RetireJapan

I wouldn't say it saves any money, but quality of our life has improved significantly after hiring a house help. Cleaning a kitchen and a bathroom, and cooking for a toddler a couple times a month (we freeze the food) costs less than 20k, but it is worth every yen

(combined annual income around 5,000,000 yen) -Our budget for the property (used) is around 10,000,000 to 15,000,000 yen (including all the extra fees, etc); You should have no problems getting 100% or even more than 100% (misc expenses, reform etc) even now, provided you have stable jobs. Banks se...

For our local city school you have to live in the area, but we have a couple of prefectural schools nearby open to anyone who lives in the prefecture. There's an entrance test to get in and about one in four junior high school applicants are accepted and one in seven for high school. I see. Another...

After that we plan to try and get him into one of the selective public middle schools with an affiliated high school. The problem is that is what pretty much everyone wants to do around here, so competition is pretty stiff. Is it possible without moving into the catchment area of the school? I was ...

Bringing the discussion back to practical level, I do not think that shelling out for international school or studying abroad is the only way to achieve bilingualism (or let's speak frankly - so much desired fluency in English). I myself achieved fluency only in my early twenties with help of only b...

Any 火災保険 I've seen have this option (often this it a must-be type). Sompo, Rakuten and Tokyo Marine definitely have it. The limit it 10万, though.
I'm not sure if it can be purchased separately.

It's always interesting to see how people build their houses in a way I would never do :lol: However, I can understand most of your design choices, but the below two: 1) There is no space for hanging an outerwear in the SIC. Actually this is what baffles me the most in Japanese houses. How it is sup...

Thinking laterally, (I'm lying down right now), if this is an area you want to plant roots in, maybe you could build something that could easily be adapted into a two family dwelling. Then move into half on retirement and give half to your favorite child alternatively rent it to your least fave. Ni...

As others have mentioned, buying a used place seems more sensible financially, so keep looking for houses or apartments that suit your needs. Although we ended up buying a used house, I wouldn't say that it is necessarily more sensible than building or buying new in Japanese context. Quality of Jap...

btw, I'm sure you're aware already, but it takes upwards of two years to build a house, but you’ll need to pay for the land upfront, and pay for the house in stages as the builders reach milestones. So you’ll be paying double for housing for at least two years. Not necessarily. Usually people use つ...