When we were looking around for a financial institution for a housing loan, we found that the major ones didn't really want to talk to us, but there were plenty of other places that would.

In the end, we went with JA Bank, the financial services arm of the association of Japanese agricultural cooperatives. Their conditions for extending a loan were easy to fulfill but the loan itself cost more. For one thing, we were required to take out JA's own fire insurance, which is more expensive than most other fire insurance plans. Lenders usually mandate fire insurance so that the loan is still paid off even if the house is destroyed.

Our policy only covers damage from fire, but we could have paid extra for riders — options such as coverage for damage due to flooding, lightning and, of course, earthquakes. It's important to remember that in quake-prone Japan homeowners cannot take out stand-alone earthquake insurance. They can only take out quake insurance as part of a standard fire insurance policy, and earthquake coverage is not as complete as fire coverage.