Ha ha. Where I live a lot is about $50K, so I sometimes find it a bit strange that people build a $2-300K house instead of living in the one that was there. B

Ha ha. Where I live a lot is about $50K, so I sometimes find it a bit strange that people build a $2-300K house instead of living in the one that was there. But you are also right about the mortgages. Rates are super low and you can get 20 or 30 year terms. So for example even for a 25 year term, Shinsei bank is offering less than 2%: https://www.shinseibank.com/english/housing/loan_kinri.pdf https://www.shinseibank.com/english/housing/loan_kinri.pdf It's completely insane. I keep telling my wife we need buy a house just to lock into the nearly free money. On the other hand, if the bank thinks this is a good deal for them, they must be forseeing some pretty bad economy in the future...