Buying and Renovating a Condominium in Japan from Overseas: Case Study from Plaza Homes

[SPONSORED] Foreign buyers looking to buy a home in Japan often find that the best-value condominiums in Tokyo are older resale properties, structurally sound and well-located but cosmetically dated. However, this then raises the next logical question: is it possible to buy an older property, then manage a renovation from abroad? The good news is that with the right support, it’s entirely achievable. Here’s how one overseas couple did exactly that, with the help of Plaza Homes, a bilingual real estate agency with over 50 years of experience helping expats rent, buy, and sell property in Tokyo, and a long-time partner of Real Estate Japan. Case study: Renovating a property as a future home base in Tokyo Mr. AJ, an American in his 60s, and his Japanese wife, residents of the United States, contacted Plaza Homes for assistance with a property search in Japan. Their main objective was to provide a comfortable and safe home for the wife’s elderly parents, who had previously lived near Chofu, a city in western Tokyo. The couple also had plans to eventually relocate to Japan themselves, so the property needed to serve as a long-term base. Given the age of the wife’s parents, their top pri...