After 12 years of living in Japan and finally obtaining permanent residence, I’ve started to seriously consider purchasing a home. I started looking at homes a couple of years ago and started by looking at super cheap homes for sale. The “akiya” craze was happening and I was trying to find the cheapest house that I could purchase; however, those homes are clearly not ideal for most people who live and work in Japan due to some of their secluded locations or significant distance from public transportation, grocery stores, etc… Due to that, and my desire to continue to live within Nara City, I’ve decided to stretch my budget a little bit higher while maintaining financial comfortability.

The houses that I’m considering now are over double the size of my current apartment. I think that’s why some of that concerns me as I don’t want to have “too much house” or even have a waste of space. When it came down to it, the bare essentials for me were a (spacious) yard for gardening, a parking space, and to be relatively close to public transportation and/or walking distance from a grocery store. Despite this, it wasn’t as simple or easy as I thought that it would be.

House # 1

This first house has been renovated – but mostly on a cosmetic scale, aside from the brand new stove and bathroom. Naturally, I gravitated to the backyard the most. It’s huge, in relation to most Japanese properties. Should I take public transportation, I can walk to the closest bus stop and make it to Kintetsu Nara Station in about 15 minutes. Unfortunately, the closest grocery store is a 6-minute drive to Kizukawa City (Kyoto). It just makes me wonder how I’ll handle grocery shopping when/if I ever stop driving.

House # 2

The yard around the house was very appealing when I first saw this property. I also liked the hardwood floors; however, a lot of things still need to be renovated/updated. I think the only thing that really had me seeing dollar signs was the separation between the galley kitchen, the formal dining room and how it’s all separated from the living room. Granted, I can get over it, but since most Japanese homes weren’t structured for open-concept designs, I’d be curious about how much it may cost to renovate.

House # 3

This house was the most recent one that I saw. Driving up to the house and even walking inside, I felt like this house and property was huge. Despite the house only being about 1,500 ft² I almost felt as though I wouldn’t be able to handle so much property on my own. The perks, however, is that a grocery store is within a 10 minute walk and there’s a convenient bus stop nearby. The only thing is that this is the most expensive property (out of the three). It also requires considerable renovation; but it was built in 1996, so probably has the best earthquake-proofing of all the properties, as well.

Thankfully, I’m not in a rush for any of these properties, but I’ll be sure to record some of the process once things get a bit more serious, so stay tuned for more! Please feel free to share your thoughts as I’m open to hear any and all of them. Cheers!