RetireJapan

Your property tax would certainly go up a bit, but really not much. Maybe what you're paying now plus 10-20,000 yen a year? It's probably not enough to really worry all that much about. You'd save more by not owning a car. IIRC, your property tax is based on the value of the house as of Jan 1, so if...

Roger101, you haven't clarified, but is your wife working? Life insurance is used to offset loss of income. If she is working, you may want some insurance to offset the of her income if she dies. If she's not working you wouldn't be losing any income, and spending money for life insurance to cover n...

I'll be more blunt, OkiBurn is getting absolutely hosed. Only the agent selling that policy is laughing. Betting on achieving 7% growth is a fantasy. Over time, stocks on average have had real returns of 5%, and we're now coming off one of the longest mostly bull runs to date with man markets still ...

And one option that isn't that well-known: You can save upwards of 10% or even more on costs if you buy from someone directly: No broker's fees and no consumption tax. Real estate agents will often have properties of their own. We've now purchased three houses near us by simply asking around and fin...

One piece of information we haven't quite pinned down yet, and obviously it's crucial, is what specifically are the consequences in the worst situation and we default on the loan. Note: this will be a company loan and not a personal loan. If anyone has knowledge or experience I would be interested ...

Humility is a wonderful thing.

I'm sure it is. I wouldn't know.

Experience is also wonderful teacher.
I'll keep telling people on the hopes that it helps even one person.

Inflation? Inflation is the very last thing we need to be worried about right now. If we really do face a bad/really bad scenario, we're talking widespread unemployment, healthcare system razed to the ground and real estate market is destroyed - there's zero risk of inflation in that scenario; in th...

Really really hope things turned out ok on this and COVID-19 hasn't hurt either of your incomes.

REIT stocks and ETFs are getting smashed. I see some on the NYSE have dropped as much as 80%. However, I'm pretty confident that the big boys will bounce back. Likely a cut in dividends for the short term though. I am not at all confident they will come back. At least overseas, this could devastate...

I moved back to Japan in the summer of 2017, after living abroad for 10 years. I applied for PR in the summer of 2019 and was approved a few months later. I had to show proof of employment (在職証明書), show that my tax and pension payments etc were up to date - I basically only had documentation for the...