Find your dream house in Japan, without Japanese.

What is Japan Houses?

Japan Houses (japan-houses.com) is an English-language catalogue of houses for sale in Japan. We collect public listings from Japanese real-estate agencies, translate them, convert the price into your currency and add what a foreign buyer needs to know: the total cost, the official hazard maps and a short buyer check. The site is not an agency and does not sell houses; when you ask about a house, a licensed Japanese agent answers and we translate.

How much does a house in Japan cost?

Across the houses on the site, the median asking price is $66,773 (¥10.5 million), and half of all houses cost between $31,161 and $133,545. About 38% of them cost under $50,000. Prices depend first on location: the median is lowest in Yamaguchi, Wakayama, Mie and Kagawa, and highest in Okinawa, Tokyo and Kanagawa. In the four prefectures around Tokyo the median is $81,399, and $113,196 inside Tokyo itself.

The age of the building matters almost as much. Japanese wooden houses lose most of their book value after 20 to 30 years, so an old house in the countryside is often priced close to the value of its land, sometimes below it. 51% of the houses listed here were built before 1981, and they make up most of the cheapest listings. Full price data by region is on each prefecture page.

What you can buy at each budget

What the houses on the site look like in each price band right now (typical year and size are medians):

• Under $10,000: Mostly old rural houses sold for little more than the land; expect repairs. Typically built in 1966, 128 m² of floor space; most listed in Niigata and Hyogo.
• $10,000 – $30,000: Countryside houses, many lived in until recently; some can be used as they are. Typically built in 1973, 132 m² of floor space; most listed in Nagano and Saitama.
• $30,000 – $50,000: Larger rural houses and small houses in regional towns, often with land. Typically built in 1977, 134 m² of floor space; most listed in Yamanashi and Gunma.
• $50,000 – $100,000: Newer or renovated houses in the countryside, older houses in commuter towns. Typically built in 1982, 150 m² of floor space; most listed in Shizuoka and Gunma.
• $100,000 – $300,000: Family houses from the 1990s onward, renovated old houses, larger plots near cities. Typically built in 1990, 217 m² of floor space; most listed in Oita and Shizuoka.
• Over $300,000: Big recent houses, villas in resort areas, architect-designed houses, central Tokyo. Typically built in 1996, 294 m² of floor space; most listed in Okinawa and Kyoto.

Where to find houses for sale in Japan

Where to look depends on what you want from the house: an easy trip to Tokyo, a ski town, the sea or the lowest possible price. Each region is a different market:

• Near Tokyo (Tokyo, Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba): commuter towns and the Boso and Miura coasts; the highest prices, the best transport.
• Kyoto, Osaka and Kansai (Kyoto, Osaka): city town houses (machiya) and old farmhouses within an hour of Kyoto.
• Hokkaido: large plots and low prices outside the ski resorts; long, snowy winters.
• Kyushu (Oita, Kumamoto, Fukuoka…): mild winters, hot-spring towns and fair prices; Fukuoka is the main airport and city.
• Okinawa: subtropical islands, concrete houses built for typhoons and some of the highest prices outside Tokyo.
• The countryside (Shikoku, Chugoku, Tohoku, the Japan Sea coast): the lowest prices in the country, older houses, fewer services.

Types of houses you can buy

• All houses for sale in Japan: every listing, filterable by price, region, size, year and distance to the sea.
• Cheap houses under $50,000: mostly rural, often older; some are ready to live in, others are renovation projects.
• Akiya: houses that are vacant today. Japan counted 9.0 million vacant homes in 2023, 13.8% of all housing.
• Traditional Japanese houses: kominka farmhouses, machiya, tatami rooms, engawa verandas and irori hearths.
• Beach houses: houses within 1 km of the sea, with the tsunami map checked when the location is known.
• Modern houses: built in 2000 or later, under Japan's current earthquake rules (11% of the houses on the site).

Japanese house types explained

Japan's earthquake building standards

Japan's building code has been tightened after each major earthquake. The year a house was permitted tells you which rules it was built to:

• Before June 1981 (old standard, kyū-taishin): designed for moderate earthquakes only. 51% of the houses on our site. Not unsafe by definition, but usually needs an inspection and often reinforcement; many towns subsidise both.
• June 1981 to 2000 (new standard, shin-taishin): designed not to collapse in a very strong earthquake (shindo 6+ to 7). 38% of our houses. This is the line banks, insurers and tax breaks use.
• From June 2000 (the "2000 standard"): for wooden houses, foundations sized to the ground, metal fixings at the joints and walls placed evenly. 11% of our houses.
• From April 2025: most new two-storey wooden houses must have their structure checked by the authorities, which was not required before.

What to check before you buy

The asking price is only part of the story, especially for old or very cheap houses. Before you fall for a house, check these points with the agent:

• Rebuilding rights: a plot that does not touch a public road of at least 4 m along at least 2 m is often classed as non-rebuildable (saikenchiku fuka). You can repair the house but not replace it, and it will be hard to resell.
• Hazard maps: flood, landslide and tsunami zones are public; we add them to each house page when the location is known.
• Earthquake standard: check the year of the building permit, not only the year of completion (see the standards above).
• Utilities: many rural houses use a septic tank or an old pit toilet, a private well or propane gas; check what works and what must be replaced.
• Farmland: fields sold with a house cannot change hands without the approval of the local agricultural committee, which often requires the buyer to farm them.
• Snow and access: in heavy-snow areas, roofs and roads need clearing all winter, and some mountain houses are cut off by snow.

Foreigners can buy any of these houses with the same full ownership (shoyūken) as a Japanese buyer; the rules for non-residents are in the questions below.

What a house costs on top of the price

Budget roughly 6–10% on top of the asking price for a typical house; on very cheap houses the fixed costs weigh more.

Cost	How much
Agent's fee	Up to 3% + ¥60,000 + 10% tax on houses over ¥4 million; for houses of ¥8 million or less, the agent may charge up to ¥330,000 (rule since July 2024)
Registration tax	1.5% of the assessed value of the land, 2% of the building
Acquisition tax	3% of the assessed value (rate until March 2027), paid once, with reductions for homes
Judicial scrivener	About ¥50,000–100,000 to register the transfer
Property tax (yearly)	1.4% of the assessed value, which is usually far below the price; up to 0.3% city planning tax in towns

Each house page shows its own estimate. Most foreign buyers pay cash, because Japanese banks rarely lend to non-residents.

How to buy a house in Japan

1. Choose a house and run the checks above: hazard map, road access, rebuilding rights, utilities.
2. Ask the agent for the details and, if you can, visit or book a video viewing.
3. Make a written offer; the agent negotiates with the seller.
4. Read the important-matters explanation (jūyō jikō setsumei), in translation.
5. Sign the contract and pay a deposit, usually around 10%.
6. Pay the balance; a judicial scrivener registers the transfer the same day.
7. If you live abroad, appoint a tax representative and file the Bank of Japan report.

The whole process usually takes one to three months and can be done from abroad.

How we check every listing

Every house on Japan Houses comes from a Japanese agency listing. We translate the listing with AI and check the figures against the original data, convert prices into your currency, mark houses built before the 1981 earthquake code, add the official flood, tsunami and landslide maps when the location is known, and mark a house as no longer on the market when its listing is withdrawn. Prices are asking prices, not sale prices. Read more on how we check houses and who we are.

Sources: Statistics Bureau of Japan, 2023 Housing and Land Survey · Ministry of Finance, reports on real-estate acquisitions by non-residents · National Tax Agency, registration tax rates (2026) · Ministry of Justice ordinance No. 23 of 2026 (nationality on registration) · MLIT notice on agent fees (revised July 2024) · listing data: Japanese real-estate agencies, 5,000+ listings.

Japan Houses · hello@japan-houses.com