There are many incentives for buying a home. One of them is to simply get out of paying rent — but that isn't to say that once you own your residence there aren't costs that have to be paid on a regular basis.
If it's a house it must be maintained, and if it's a condominium there are monthly management and repair fees that can add up to as much as the rent of an apartment.
Then there's property tax, which in Japan is made up of a koteishisan-zei (fixed-asset tax) and a toshikeikaku-zei (municipal tax). Though everyone knows property owners have to pay the authorities for the privilege of owning that property, the obligation doesn't always figure into a potential buyer's financial plan. Whenever we inspect properties we ask the real-estate agents how much the annual tax is, and many times they say they don't know, which seems strange. Understanding the tax liability is as important as understanding the payment terms of the housing loan.