Choosing a Real Estate Agency When Purchasing a Property in Japan

Japan is one of the most attractive countries in the world for real estate investment, with the relative ease of acquiring property even by foreign investors, as well as the country’s exceptional safety and excellent infrastructure.

However, though acquiring a property in Japan may be fairly easy, selling that property is a different story. It is especially difficult if you are a foreign property owner residing outside of Japan.

In order to sell your property in Japan, a real estate agency that is knowledgeable in Japanese law and business transactions is indispensable. In other words, the success of your property sale depends highly on the real estate agency you choose.

In this article, we explain some important points for choosing a real estate agency if you are an overseas-based foreign investor looking to sell your property in Japan.

At wagaya Japan, we have multilingual staff who are highly experienced in real estate transactions. Contact wagaya Japan for all your real estate needs.

■ Point 1: Many Japanese real estate agencies choose to avoid clients based overseas

First of all, if you are a foreign investor, it is important to understand that while there are tens of thousands of real estate agencies in Japan, not many are actually eager to deal with foreign clients, especially those who are based overseas.

While there are probably several reasons for this, the most common one is the language barrier. Most Japanese real estate agencies simply do not have the personnel who have the required language proficiency to communicate with foreign clients who cannot speak Japanese.

Furthermore, one characteristic of the Japanese real estate industry is that most real estate agencies only deal with properties in their locality. They also tend to prioritize investors and property owners who are in or near their local region.

This is because many property owners in Japan are wealthy business owners or celebrities who tend to own several properties or tracts of land in the vicinity of their residence. In order to ensure a smooth business, local real estate agencies want to keep good relations with these local property owners, so they tend to avoid dealing with outsiders.

A further point is that dealing with property owners who are not legal residents of Japan usually means real estate agencies have to do more paperwork and legal procedures that would not be required for Japan residents (note that there are exceptions to this rule).

These are the main reasons why most Japanese real estate agencies prefer to work with local clients instead of foreign investors who are based overseas.

At wagaya Japan, we have worked with many clients based overseas in their sale or purchase of property in Japan.

Contact wagaya Japan for all your real estate needs.

■ Point 2: Choose a real estate agency that specializes in dealing with foreign clientele

As mentioned above, Japanese real estate agencies generally provide services specific to their local region, and they tend to shy away from dealing with foreign investors.

This is why when choosing a real estate agency in Japan, you should check if they have a team or unit that specializes in working with foreign investors. Such real estate agencies will likely not have any issues in terms of language proficiency.

In real estate transactions, smooth communication and mutual understanding between the seller and the buyer is paramount, so the real estate agency needs to be able to foster that communication.

Furthermore, real estate agencies that have such specialized units are presumably familiar with the rules and special considerations for conducting transactions with foreign investors who are based overseas.

So if you want to ensure the success of your property sale in Japan, you should choose a real estate agency that promotes its specialization and wealth of experience in working with foreign investors.

At wagaya Japan, we have worked with many clients based overseas in their sale or purchase of property in Japan.

Contact wagaya Japan for all your real estate needs.

■ Point 3: Choose a real estate agency that can conduct transactions online

It is not enough to simply choose a Japanese real estate agency that claims to be open to working with foreign investors. Among such real estate agencies, some may only deal with foreign investors who are residing in Japan, while some may only work with overseas-based investors on the condition that they come to Japan to do business.

In order to ascertain whether the real estate agency can work with you even while overseas, you should request a preliminary online consultation. Agencies who can work well with overseas-based investors should be adept at online communication and information provision.

During the online consultation, you should confirm whether there is a need for you to go to Japan in order to complete the sales transaction of your property.

In the past, Japanese law stated that the real estate buyer and seller must in principle conduct a face-to-face transaction. Though this law has been relaxed in recent years, many real estate agencies are not yet used to conducting online transactions where one or both parties are not onsite.

This is why it is important to choose a real estate agency that can readily conduct transactions and complete legal procedures online.

At wagaya Japan, over 90% of our client communications are done online.

We can help you with your real estate needs wherever you are in the world.

■ Final point: Evaluate the real estate agency based on their strengths and passion

Most real estate agencies in Japan can be categorized into one of three types: ones that broker only property sales/rentals, ones that conduct only property management, and ones that do both property sales/rentals and property management.

If you are looking to sell your property in Japan, then you naturally have to choose an agency that can broker property sales. But we recommend choosing an agency that can do both property sales as well as property management. This is because a real estate agency that conducts property management is normally good at finding tenants, which means that they are adept at promoting their properties to potential customers, whether they are tenants or buyers.

Besides identifying the strengths and capabilities of the real estate agency, it is also important to evaluate their passion and enthusiasm for doing business with you.

In real estate transactions, both the buyer and the seller can be greatly influenced by the attitude of the mediating real estate agency. If the agency has not much enthusiasm in conducting a sale, then they will likely be unable to broker a deal that is satisfactory to all parties.

More than the specialization of the real estate agency, you should make sure that they have the passion to work with foreign investors and understand their needs. A real estate agency that shows passion in their work will convey that passion to potential buyers, leading to a better chance at a good deal.

wagaya Japan offers a property management service called “wagaya PM&L” that is specialized for foreign property owners in Japan. With our experience and knowhow from managing over 16,000 properties nationwide, we can provide total support for your property management and leasing.