Lifesaving Vocabulary

       Let me backtrack here a bit and post about buying property.  Looking back into some of our files, I just found the vocabulary list we had prepared back when we were in the process of buying our land.  We needed to get a few terms straight, especially concerning loan terms and purchase agreement.   I thought I'd share this LIST as it was highly useful to us. 



       Since the loan was granted to my husband, he had to fill in all of the applications in Japanese.  So while he fine tuned his Hiragana and Katakana, I printed out all of the terms and addresses I thought he would need to write in Kanji.  Let me tell you, Mitaka has one mean character in it: 三鷹   Plus, it's one thing to write your kanjis in the comfort of your home, feeling pride in your progress, and quite another to fill out a detailed application in front of scrutinizing eyes....  So we carried this printout of our current and future address and other details  in large characters to all of our official meetings with the bank and our realtor.  Highly recommended!

      Also, we obviously couldn't read all of the terms of our land purchase contract so we asked a good friend to accompany us for the transaction.  She eased our concerns by saying that even she couldn't make sense of all the small print...  In any case, neither the realtor nor the seller of the land really care whether you master your kanjis.  But the bank might...  When we first approached banks about loans, one agent at a Downtown Tokyo SMBC branch of SMBC told my husband that it would be impossible for him to get a loan from their bank since he couldn't read ALL of the loan contract.   Didn't matter if we had Permanent Residency and had been living in Japan for 20 years... 
     Ironically, we got our loan from the same bank, just another branch in our neighborhood! What really helped us was that our realtor made the initial contact with the loan officer and accompanied us to all of the initial meetings with the bank, along with his assistant Miyao-san.  The loan officer was also really helpful as he arranged for us to have an English-speaking agent go over the details of the loan agreement with us.

     Anyway, time to brush up on those kanjis...

Buying Real Estate

     When we began looking for land this past August, we really wondered where to start.  This was actually a process we had undertaken 8 years previous, but we had never followed through on a purchase back then because we didn't have our Permanent Residency and also because we were ambivalent about staying in Japan for long at that time.

     So this time, we started looking at available land and properties on the internet but we wanted to get in touch with a Realtor that would help us track that piece of land that would best suit us.  We didn't want to buy a used home, knowing that the building standards have evolved in recent years.  We didn't want to buy a prefabricated home either (Tate-uri) because we had very specific needs that were simply not adressed by ready-made homes.  We had already seen a few and weren't impressed.

 

     We first visited a Real Estate Agent near Kichijoji Station who introduced 3 pieces of land.  Surprisingly, the agent was only midly interested in helping us, and after our initial meeting, he never contacted us again.  We never went back there either.  We then visited Landmark Real Estate Agent where we met with Fujimori-san and Miyao-san, who were both keen on assisting us without being overly zealous.  That's an important point because we didn't want to feel rushed.  They showed us 3 pieces of land and took us to see one of them. 

    In the evening, we took our bikes and peddled on over to see one of the proposed lands, and that's when it happened!  We fell in love with it!  We were unable to even consider any other land after that.  So it was hard to bluff with Fujimori-san on our next meeting and not let it show that we REALLY wanted this one.  Fujimori-san showed us a couple more places, but finally, by the end of the meeting, we were making an offer...

   Land prices have been dropping in and around Tokyo over the past few months.  This particular land was originally posted at a much higher price than what we got it for.  The difference between last year's price and this year's was 1000 man yen (approx. 100,000 dollars).  We still requested a rebate on the asking price, and confirmation that our offer had been accepted came to us the very next day.

Financial Matters

     The price tag attached to our dream piece of land had us plunge into all kinds of calculations and financial projections.  Buying property in Tokyo is costly!  Most banks are reluctant to loan past a certain amount, but they are willing to consider it if you can provide a sizeable downpayment, in our case, 20% of the cost of the land and house. After submitting our request for preapproval last week, we got good news today!  Our formal loan application was successful!  So now, there is no way to back out of this...

     What makes this purchase financially plausible and emotionally manageable is that the location of the land is outstanding and so is the reputation of the neighborhood.  And that's not even considering the fact that it's located only 8 minutes walk from Kichijoji station.  So, if at some point we were to decide to move to some other place, like say Bolivia (a bit unlikely), we could easily sell!  Here's  a photo of the beautiful stairway leading from Inokashira Park to our street.

     Now we need to start designing our home!  One of the conditions of our bank loan is that we start builiding 6 months from the signing of the contract and finish building within a year. A fun but slightly overwhelming project, considering all the ground we need to cover.  Let's now  focus on finidng a good architect and builder that will not default midway through the construction...

Settling in Japan...

     After nearly 20 years in Japan, we've finally made up our mind! We're settling in!

     Over the years, we've considered so many alternatives - returning to Canada, moving to Bolivia, settling elsewhere in Asia, going to Europe - but in the back of our minds, we always knew that it would be difficult to leave Japan, to say goodbye forever to Tokyo, especially Kichijoji, where we've resided for the past 11 years.

     We met and got married here, we found stable employment, we live close to relatives, our kids were born here and call it home, we've made wonderful friends and had so many enriching experiences... And along the way, we've met people in Japan that literally changed our lives, that helped us in so many ways. Where else could we settle?

     In this blog, we look forward to sharing our thoughts about what makes this city such a good place to live, to raise a family, and to grow individually and as members of our community. We hope you'll enjoy reading our posts!