Getting a mortgage on a property outside of commute distance

[kidviddy]

I'm currently living in Tokyo, but planning at some point (not sure when, maybe 3-5 years if all goes well; too short to be worth my while buying in Tokyo at any rate) to move to Kyoto. When I do, I will almost certainly have to leave my current well-paid job, and will either take a (much) lower-paid job or possibly not take a job at all and live off investments for a bit while I try and work on some of my own projects.

It would be very convenient if I could buy a property in Kyoto while I'm still in Tokyo and have it fixed up or whatever while I'm still living here, so that it would be ready whenever I'm ready to make the move. It would also be much easier to get approved for a loan (generally) while I have a stable job with a high salary than when I have potentially no job and I'm just living off savings. Even if those savings are quite substantial, my understanding is that banks weight salary income and length of service at a company higher than savings (if they look at savings at all) when deciding the loan. However, the real estate agent I spoke to in Kyoto said that in general if you want to get one of the low-rate loans for your primary residence, the property has to be within 90 minutes' commute of your place of work, which Kyoto very much is not. So, if I wanted to buy now, I'd have to take out some other sort of loan, I guess for 別荘 or whatever, which would be charged at a much higher rate (I think I heard like 2% bandied about somewhere once?).

It seems like I have a few options, although I don't know how realistic each of these are:

• Take the higher loan rate now, buy the place, and keep paying at that higher rate until it is paid off
• Take the higher loan rate now, buy the place, and then when I move to Kyoto attempt to remortgage with a primary residence mortgage at a lower rate
  • Is this even possible?
  • When I try to remortgage, will they look at my (potentially zero) salary and say "wait a minute I'm not sure about this guy any more"
• Hold off and wait until I've moved to Kyoto before attempting to get a mortgage (but with low/zero salary and few years employment if I'm even employed at all)
• Something else I haven't thought of?

Does this analysis seem correct? Is there anything I haven't thought of? Does anybody have any experience with a similar sort of situation who might be able to offer some advice?

Thanks!

(EDIT: Spelling corrections)
(EDIT 2: I guess another important consideration is the mortgage income tax relief, which would be much more meaningful to me now while I have an income than it would be after I move to Kyoto and have a much lower or zero income, although I expect I will have some capital gains / dividends income to report at that stage)

[Teflon]

Can you tell your company that you want to telework from Kyoto? If they are okay with that, maybe they can issue you a "certificate of transfer" which the bank would accept, according to this web site: https://xn--r8jh5fzg6gti1b6g2b1425c2kb6 ... 185.html#2

[kidviddy]

My company won't allow remote work, unfortunately... pre-covid managers sometimes looked the other way, but these days it's a lot more strict ironically enough. Maybe they'll have relaxed a bit 3-5 years down the line I guess, although I'm not holding up much hope.

[Gulliver]

However, the real estate agent I spoke to in Kyoto said that in general if you want to get one of the low-rate loans for your primary residence, the property has to be within 90 minutes' commute of your place of work,

Hmm. Have you inquired directly at any local banks? Why would they would financially hamstring themselves so blithely?