San Francisco aims to rein in tests of tech ideas on streets
Tired of San Francisco streets being used as a testing ground for the latest delivery technology and transportation apps, city leaders are considering requiring businesses to get permits before trying out new high-tech ideas in public. Supporters of the legislation, which the Board of Supervisors ...
Downsized dwellings: Inside Tokyo's tiny living spaces
Twenty-five-year-old Sotaro Ito lives in a 9.46-square-meter apartment with a loft in the capital's retro-hip Koenji district. His apartment looks more like an office cubicle, with a desk and computer chair dominating a third of the room. A reading pillow is propped up against one ...
Leopalace21 scandal highlights the risk tenants face in Japan compared to building owners
The theme of the Nippon Television series "Shiawase! Bonbi Girl" (“Happy Poor Girls”) is one of the most resilient on Japanese television: People of limited means getting by. As the title indicates, the subject is young women and one of the regular segments, "Jokyo ...
New minpaku law will alter Japan's rental and hospitality landscape
A new law will go into effect in June to regulate minpaku, private residences rented out by their owners as short-term lodgings. To most, the new law will address changes that have occurred in recent years due to the rise of Airbnb, the ...
Doling out some truths about Japan's 'share houses'
Many Japanese people are wary of investment as a means of growing their savings. There are a variety of reasons for this caution, so most keep their money in a bank, gaining almost no interest in the process, in the hope that they won't ...
Condo management is in need of repairs
On Dec. 18, the Supreme Court's petit bench ruled against a man from Fukuoka Prefecture who was suing the management association (kanri kumiai) of his condominium for firing him as its president of the board (rijicho) because the regulations of the association contained no ...
Beware the patter about purchasing property to rent out around Tokyo
At seminars targeting expat investors, don't expect to hear the whole story about Japan's rental market.
Lessons about Japan's school catchment areas
A neighbor recently asked us to sign a petition requesting that the local education committee keep a certain elementary school open. Due to falling enrollment, students who attended the school would be transferred to a different one in the near future. Since the ...
Can a death kill property value?
The apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture, where police found the remains of nine bodies in late October is one of 12 units in a two-story wooden apartment building located 10 minutes from Sobudai Station on the Odakyu Odawara line. Each unit consists of one ...
A gut feeling that you need an extra toilet
Everybody knows that Japan produces the most technologically advanced toilets in the world. They pretty much do everything except pull up your pants when you're finished. And one of the more pleasant surprises greeting foreign visitors to Japan is the ubiquity and accessibility of ...
Re-registering property: The lie of the land
According to an article that appeared in the Asahi Shimbun last June, authorities are unsure of the title holders to 4.1 million hectares of land in Japan — in total, an area equivalent in size to the island of Kyushu. Though this problem has ...
Buying a house in Japan can be an investment in joy
The "return" on your investment in a home in Japan is best measured in terms of the pleasure it will yield and the doorway to the intimacies of community and the Japanese mind it will lure you into.
