Tokyo Real Estate

This morning, the Bank of Japan has dropped interest rates for a second time in as many months.

It has gone from:

0.5% in October
0.3% in Novemeber (-0.2%)
0.1% in December (-0.2%)

Buying property with Japanese home loans just got cheaper!
Let's hope the all the savings gets passed down to the end client quickly.

I read this article from my hometown's local newspaper, The OC Register sometime early this year. I don't remember who wrote it or who is getting quoted so I am really sorry for that. I thought it was an interesting way of describing a property purchase so I will paste the part I copied from the article.

Here it is:

Buying a home is not like buying anything else. You can buy a car with more or less the desired model, color, and accessories. If it is not on the dealer's lot, they can try to find it for you. You can wait to see if the price will go down or you can pay a higher price early in the model year or buy it later just before the new models come out. You can search online in state and out of state. There is a large supply and one car is fairly easy to substitute for another car.

Homes are not like that. An individual can look at three homes all at the same price and decide that none of the homes will work due to their location, interior layout, age, state of repair or other attributes. So waiting for the right "price" is not feasible because other people are also looking at that home and once that home is gone, it is gone – there is no easy substitute. As a consequence, there is no magic formula of when to buy. The only issue the financial planner can help with is helping the buyer know what they can afford. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.