"Ken Yasumoto-Nicolson" <ken_nicolson@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:o1jt605mi3gq5hlsqvkr6ekkm1fvm3f9ob@4ax.com...
> On Sat, 3 Apr 2004 21:30:34 +0900, "John Yamamoto-Wilson"
> <johndeletethis@rarebooksinjapan.com> wrote:
>
> >I haven't applied for permanent residence yet (will be applying for it
soon,
> >now I've got tenure at work), so I'm on the three-year spouse thingy. But
I
> >got a loan on a house nearly four years ago.
>
> Did you need a Japanese guarantor, though? Or did they do a lot of
> paperwork in your wife's name? We're planning on starting looking next
> spring, which is also about the same time as I can apply for PR
> myself.

I also don't have a PR, and we got a housing loan with no problem. My wife
applied, I was the joint guarantor. House is 50/50 in both our names. We
used no outside guarantors.

So in a way, it was easier to buy a house than rent an apo -- with the apo,
we needed to get Reiko's SIL to be one guarantor, and pay a "guarantor
agent" to be our other guarantor (the realtors insisted on at least one of
the guarantors being located in Okinawa).

We are actually applying for another loan from the same back, this time for
an addition to the house. They pretty much told us ahead of time that we
would be approved, even though it is only about 6 months after they approved
the housing loan.

But there is so much variation from one bank to another, and even from one
branch to another. Mizuho bank, which was offering around 1.75% interest at
the time (we got an outrageously high 1.975%), didn't even want to talk to
us. And Okigin wouldn't even let me open up an account with them.

--
Regards,
Ryan Ginstrom