There are no additional legal requirements to having foreign tenants. That being said, there are strong legal requirements to having any tenants. Japan is very

There are no additional legal requirements to having foreign tenants. That being said, there are strong legal requirements to having any tenants. Japan is very renter-friendly, and you can even be months late on paying rent without any chance of eviction. So lenders lean towards avoiding any risk at all. It can be harder to find a place as a foreigner due to risk-adversity, but while most comments here want to paint it as racism, my guess is few of the posters actually speak Japanese - I suspect it would be difficult finding a place in any country when not speaking of their language, though have no actual experience to base that on. But as a brown (other comments have suggested we suffer more discrimination, which is true in the eyes of cops and general people assuming we are all poor restaurant owners) that speaks Japanese, real estate had never been difficult, though there is additional cost for a guarantor which would otherwise be a family member. But the thread is about Singapore where presumably there is no languages issue so not sure where Japan came from. I suppose it's tradition though for expats here to vent though ;)