As reported previously, K and I were thinking to move to a new location – a bigger one – for when the baby comes. Thinking it was about time to invest in our family’s future and stop renting we considered buying a place. We looked at apartment condos and even some houses last fall but we were told that because I don’t have a permanent resident status visa I could not get a loan. So we gave up the idea of buying a place.
Then my manager told me she heard through her real estate agent that there was one bank that would loan money to a foreigner as long as he was married to a Japanese national. And as you know, K and I married in March. With the apartment contract due to expire by the first week of April we decided to look again.
The real estate agent received a fax from me specifying where we would like to live and what details we were looking for as well as our price range. He showed us a couple of very nice houses, one of them with a 300 square metre yard (that is very big by Japanese standards). We knew we could afford a mortgage payment of under 80,000 yen per month (about $800) and that a house under 24,000,000 would be right.
The first problem came when the bank said that because of my employment situation – small company, only been there two years, etc. – they would only lend us a maximum of 16,000,000 yen. That meant we either had to find a used home or move farther away from any city. Basically, anything farther than a 20-minute bus ride to the nearest train station is considered far and out here in Saitama that means you are surrounded by rice paddies mostly.
The real estate agent put together a list of places to show us. But on the day we were to go out it was pouring rain. Our apartment contract had to be dealt with and so I forked over the renewal fee and secured the place for another two years. Now we could relax and look around a little. The following week we were out looking at the houses. Some were in nice neighbourhoods with trees and small fields around. Some houses had pretty decent gardens and trees behind. Some houses had been partly renovated inside. But all of them were old and not really very impressive. I realized that our first house was going to have to be something that was far from perfect for us, based on what we had seen among the new houses.
We were shown one place far away from the city and it was really nice. The yard was not developed but it was big. The interior of the house had been totally renovated and there was even carpet on the stairs. The rooms were few but unusually big. It was great but indeed remote.
At last we were shown a place that was a 20-minute walk to the nearest station. It was 13 years old but had been totally renovated recently and inside looked almost perfectly new. The tatami mat room was even still covered in plastic. Only a few odd spots here and there were not renewed. The house came with lights (usually you have to buy your own) and it had enough rooms and enough space for us. The kitchen wasn’t exactly what we wanted but still good enough. The garden was really small but still enough that we could do something with it. Overall we were totally impressed and the house was cheaper than the others we saw. We decided to fill out the application.
Thus began the lengthy process of getting the loan. First we had to meet with our agent and the selling agents and spend two hours going over the contract details, everything down to the new closet doors. We found out the house sits on the very edge of land that was once part of an ancient village site. I had to sign my name and write my lengthy current address about 8 times. The papers were sent off to the bank. I found out that because I am a foreigner I couldn’t get the usual 35-year loan which would have had our monthly payments at 52,000 – the same as our apartment! Instead I can get a 20-year loan, which puts the monthly payments up to 77,000 yen. The good news is that we will be paying the mortgage off sooner.
A couple of days later, the bank said they needed some more documents. We had to register our marriage and our residence. That was a complicated story. Basically, I can register at my current address but my wife needs to register under her parents’ address in order to continue to use her health insurance for the check-ups and delivery. The bank didn’t like it but accepted it in the end. I also had to register my name stamp because in Japan official documents are stamped with your name, not signed. There were other papers we had to prepare too.
Next we heard that my name was wrong on some papers. Because I had registered my name stamp with my full English name but signed with only my first and last name we had to re-fill out some papers again.
Next the bank needed some of my employment information. I had to get those papers and have my manager fill them out and stamp them. Then the bank said one of my papers was obsolete because I had renewed my visa recently and now they needed an updated document. It seemed each day the real estate agent was calling me with a new request from the bank. In the last to weeks I have been to city hall four times already. Why can’t the bank just tell us everything they need at once?
At last, today I got word the loan went through. Now we have to register our new address and take care of some more paper work with the bank and do some other things I couldn’t understand. So at least three days will see me running around to city offices and banks. We should have the key in another two weeks or so.
It has been really convenient living where I am now. So many shops, my work place, the station, bank, post office, everything has been within a ten-minute walk. But for K it is far to go home to her family and with the baby she will need help from her mother and sisters a lot. The new place is farther and it will now take me an hour to get to work instead of five minutes but K can get home much quicker. The neighbourhood is quieter, safer and has more green space too. There’s a major department store within ten minutes on foot and other big stores on the main drag. We will be getting a car anyway, despite the high gas prices. I will stay in the apartment another few weeks until I get everything moved and so I can take advantage of my last days living so close to work.
So here are a few pics of the place. This is where we will make our first home as a family of three.
Looking down the street to our orangy house.
The main view.
Our narrow garden. But we saw three tree frogs in the green so we are excited about fixing up the garden and putting a very small pond in there.
From the first photo, turn around and walk five metres and this is the view.
