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Getting a credit card as a long term resident alone is hard. Getting a phone number can be troublesome for some people fresh off the boat. One longstanding issu

Getting a credit card as a long term resident alone is hard. Getting a phone number can be troublesome for some people fresh off the boat. One longstanding issue has been people who come to Japan expecting to settle down, then quickly realize it's not for them and take a flight home without telling anybody. Debts left unpaid and landlords not even contacted. People who come here with the intention of milking some cash and living in a "cheap" country have even less reason to be loyal to it. The consequence will be companies being even stricter, but parasites like AirBnB and similar companies making a killing off offering apartments 5x above normal asking price to rich nomads who will say "wow, it's so cheap!" without realizing they're being ripped off, and killing neighborhoods by driving rent prices up. Owners of multiple homes stand to gain, but typical companies have been doing the math for a long time and see nothing but losses. The general sentiment by locals towards this policy has been "So we're really becoming like Vietnam and Thailand, huh?", so the vast majority of people will not be welcoming nomads with open arms, or at all. There's already massive controversy over new apartments being bought up by foreign investors and locals being pushed farther out of Tokyo. People can downvote because they don't like hearing this. But it's the state of things here. It's a system forced against the citizens against their will. In a country with a noted history of centuries of distrust of foreigners, this visa scheme is not helping.

tjpnz 2y ago
It's quite common for apartment blocks to forbid "holiday" rentals. Mine has visible signage about this in the lobby and the building manager also looks out for it. Your typical apartment owner has zero interest in all the trouble these arrangements bring.
- forgotoldacc 2y ago
  They do. But lots of people buy homes just to rent them out. That removes a home from the market, and the competition pushes prices up. The problem isn't signage. Plus evicting/canceling a contract is an arduous process. It almost always favors the renter. And in the case of actually buying a home, there isn't much anyone can do.
- shiroiushi 2y ago
  That's for regular apartments. The blog author went to a monthly mansion, which are used for holiday rentals and other short-duration stays of a few months or so (such as people moving to a new city and needing a place before they can find a permanent apartment, or maybe people on temporary work assignments in a new city).
esperent 2y ago
> One longstanding issue has been people who come to Japan expecting to settle down, then quickly realize it's not for them and take a flight home without telling anybody. Debts left unpaid and landlords not even contacted This really sounds like one of those not-quite-racist "problems with foreigners" that every country likes to pretend they have. Every "knows" it's a problem, there's no way to prove it right or wrong, but hey, it gives people something to complain about.
- forgotoldacc 2y ago
  It might be racism. But those thoughts aren't going to be undone with visas for rich nomads/tourists who'll stay for 6 months and dip. It's only accelerating justification for racism amongst locals. And lumping any sort of economic concerns a country has into racism, then considering it something that shouldn't even be talked about because it's "racism", is how these issues start to snowball fast and more extreme racist reactions grow. A few European countries have taken hard right swings because people who said anything about immigration policies were shut down as racists. Now people don't even care about being called racist because the word is normalized. And that's a dangerous path to have started treading down. Japan is a country where being said to have some prejudice isn't something people will shamefully back away from; things could snowball much faster than in Europe.
- BoringTimesGang 2y ago
  It's not a 'Japan thing'. I pay a higher rate on my mortgage because my spouse was not a citizen of where we live when we took it out. There are fewer providers willing to offer mortgages in this situation but, presumably, there's still enough of a price incentive that the premium isn't pulled out of thin air. It's also common for landlords to ask for higher deposits or months paid up-front.
  - esperent 2y ago
    It's also possible that the banks have less legal requirements to non-citizens so they make up a bullshit reason for charging you higher. Which is absolutely something a bank would do.
carlosjobim 2y ago
> but parasites like AirBnB and similar companies making a killing off offering apartments 5x above normal asking price to rich nomads who will say "wow, it's so cheap!" without realizing they're being ripped off, and killing neighborhoods by driving rent prices up. The parasites in this case are the landlords, not AirBnB. And they're the one driving the rent prices up, not the renters. Why does everybody refuse to adress the elephant in the room? Because they have parents and uncles who live by exploiting young workers for rent, and don't want to hurt their feelings?
- diggan 2y ago
  > The parasites in this case are the landlords, not AirBnB. And they're the one driving the rent prices up, not the renters. What about considering both as parasites, just different methods for achieving basically the same thing: "More money for me". Obviously, the landlords are the ones who raise the prices. But I think it'd be ignoring reality if you didn't consider the fact that AirBnb made all of this so much easier and simpler from the landlords. There are platforms that let you sync to many portals, and even see what weeks you should raise the prices to optimize for as much profit as possible. AirBnb and the other platforms are contributing to a constant, collaborative raise of prices.
  - carlosjobim 2y ago
    AirBnB plays a very minor role in this. Yes, they make short-term rentals possible for landlords who are too dumb and lazy to be able to do it otherwise. There were other simliar platforms before AirBnB, there will be others after them.
    - rty32 2y ago
      That's why the original post says "like Airbnb", and laws like those in NYC ban all of them.
      - carlosjobim 2y ago
        What does that have to do with my comment? The blame is squarely on the landlords, blaming AirBnB or other similar websites is just because people can't deal with the fact that the persons harming them are nearby. So they need an outside force to put the blame on. Good on NYC to ban short term rentals of residential properties. Short term visitors should stay in buildings especially made for that purpose, such as hotels.

tjpnz 2y ago

It's quite common for apartment blocks to forbid "holiday" rentals. Mine has visible signage about this in the lobby and the building manager also looks out for it. Your typical apartment owner has zero interest in all the trouble these arrangements bring.

forgotoldacc 2y ago
They do. But lots of people buy homes just to rent them out. That removes a home from the market, and the competition pushes prices up. The problem isn't signage. Plus evicting/canceling a contract is an arduous process. It almost always favors the renter. And in the case of actually buying a home, there isn't much anyone can do.
shiroiushi 2y ago
That's for regular apartments. The blog author went to a monthly mansion, which are used for holiday rentals and other short-duration stays of a few months or so (such as people moving to a new city and needing a place before they can find a permanent apartment, or maybe people on temporary work assignments in a new city).

esperent 2y ago

> One longstanding issue has been people who come to Japan expecting to settle down, then quickly realize it's not for them and take a flight home without telling anybody. Debts left unpaid and landlords not even contacted This really sounds like one of those not-quite-racist "problems with foreigners" that every country likes to pretend they have. Every "knows" it's a problem, there's no way to prove it right or wrong, but hey, it gives people something to complain about.

forgotoldacc 2y ago
It might be racism. But those thoughts aren't going to be undone with visas for rich nomads/tourists who'll stay for 6 months and dip. It's only accelerating justification for racism amongst locals. And lumping any sort of economic concerns a country has into racism, then considering it something that shouldn't even be talked about because it's "racism", is how these issues start to snowball fast and more extreme racist reactions grow. A few European countries have taken hard right swings because people who said anything about immigration policies were shut down as racists. Now people don't even care about being called racist because the word is normalized. And that's a dangerous path to have started treading down. Japan is a country where being said to have some prejudice isn't something people will shamefully back away from; things could snowball much faster than in Europe.
BoringTimesGang 2y ago
It's not a 'Japan thing'. I pay a higher rate on my mortgage because my spouse was not a citizen of where we live when we took it out. There are fewer providers willing to offer mortgages in this situation but, presumably, there's still enough of a price incentive that the premium isn't pulled out of thin air. It's also common for landlords to ask for higher deposits or months paid up-front.
- esperent 2y ago
  It's also possible that the banks have less legal requirements to non-citizens so they make up a bullshit reason for charging you higher. Which is absolutely something a bank would do.

carlosjobim 2y ago

> but parasites like AirBnB and similar companies making a killing off offering apartments 5x above normal asking price to rich nomads who will say "wow, it's so cheap!" without realizing they're being ripped off, and killing neighborhoods by driving rent prices up. The parasites in this case are the landlords, not AirBnB. And they're the one driving the rent prices up, not the renters. Why does everybody refuse to adress the elephant in the room? Because they have parents and uncles who live by exploiting young workers for rent, and don't want to hurt their feelings?

diggan 2y ago
> The parasites in this case are the landlords, not AirBnB. And they're the one driving the rent prices up, not the renters. What about considering both as parasites, just different methods for achieving basically the same thing: "More money for me". Obviously, the landlords are the ones who raise the prices. But I think it'd be ignoring reality if you didn't consider the fact that AirBnb made all of this so much easier and simpler from the landlords. There are platforms that let you sync to many portals, and even see what weeks you should raise the prices to optimize for as much profit as possible. AirBnb and the other platforms are contributing to a constant, collaborative raise of prices.
- carlosjobim 2y ago
  AirBnB plays a very minor role in this. Yes, they make short-term rentals possible for landlords who are too dumb and lazy to be able to do it otherwise. There were other simliar platforms before AirBnB, there will be others after them.
  - rty32 2y ago
    That's why the original post says "like Airbnb", and laws like those in NYC ban all of them.
    - carlosjobim 2y ago
      What does that have to do with my comment? The blame is squarely on the landlords, blaming AirBnB or other similar websites is just because people can't deal with the fact that the persons harming them are nearby. So they need an outside force to put the blame on. Good on NYC to ban short term rentals of residential properties. Short term visitors should stay in buildings especially made for that purpose, such as hotels.