The full cost of building our house in Tokyo
28 Jan 2026 | #housing | #money | #japanWe recently bought land and built our home in Tokyo. I have wrote about the various costs, but in this post I’ll provide the full breakdown on how much our home cost.
Summary
The overall cost was 110 million yen (１億１千万). The land (and related expenses) were 69 million and the house (and related expenses) cost 41 million yen. We covered 109 million yen from the mortgage and only paid out-of-pocket the remaining 1 million yen.
The price of the land alone (64.3 million) and the house construction (35.6 million) add up to 100 million yen, while all the remaining costs added another 10%. Luckily many banks in Japan let you include these costs in the mortgage, which helped us keep the out-of-pocket expenses to the minimum.
Land portion
I covered this in detail in an earlier post: the land was 64.3 million yen and we paid another 4.4 million in fees (2 million to the real estate agent, 1.5 million as the loan guarantor fee).
House portion
The house was overall 41.6 million yen. I covered most of these in earlier post:
| Item | Price | Earlier post with details |
|---|---|---|
| Building the house (Ichijo) | ¥35,605,327 | The cost of our Ichijo house |
| Garden and exterior construction | ¥2,684,000 | The garden of our new house |
| Connecting the land to the water pipe | ¥1,223,035 | Our land didn’t have a connection to the water works’ pipe, so we had to get it done. (Usually when the land had an old house this won’t be necessary.) |
| Loan guarantor fee | ¥897,600 | 2.2% of the mortgage amount, same as for the land. We could have chosen a higher interest rate instead of this fee, but on the long-term this option is better. |
| Property registration and scrivener fees | ¥290,000 | Miscellaneous expenses while building our home in Tokyo |
| Bridge loan interest | ¥243,274 | Timing of the payments for the house, and the bridge loan (つなぎ融資) |
| Home insurance for 5 years | ¥175,633 | Home insurance in Japan |
| Curtains | ¥174,000 | Curtains for our new house |
| Design application and filing services | ¥154,300 | Miscellaneous expenses while building our home in Tokyo |
| Wifi and home network setup | ¥129,103 | Home network setup for our new house |
| Overall | ¥41,576,272 |
What is on this list is a bit subjective. Some people might skip things (e.g. wifi, curtains), and there were other costs (e.g. moving, new furniture) that could be included as well.
Subsidies
A major category that I intentionally skipped here are the subsidies for energy efficient housing and solar panels. These depend on the location, and also on the exact year a house is built, so I think leaving them out makes this post more useful. Moreover they are only paid out 6-12 months after the house is completed, so they don’t help with the immediate cashflow. I will cover them in a separate post.
Necessary cash at hand
So the out-of-pocket expense was less than 1 million yen. Does it mean I can get a house if I have only 1 million yen in my bank account? Not really, as there were costs that I had to pay first and then got the money back from the mortgage. Overall I needed around 5 million yen to go through the whole process. The major expenses were:
- 2024 January: signing the pre-contract with Ichijo and paying a 1 million yen deposit (refundable)
- 2024 March: made an offer on a land and had to pay 3 million yen deposit
- 2024 May: closed on the land and got the 3 million yen back from the mortgage
- 2025 June: 1.2 million yen for the water pipe connection work
- 2025 July: 1.3 million yen for the first half of the garden construction
- 2025 November: finalized the mortgage for the house and got 3.2 million yen extra (for the garden and the water pipe connection work)
- 2025 December: got a bit of the 1 million yen deposit back from Ichijo - most of it was spent on the misc expenses (bridge loan, registration fees, application fees)
- 2026 January: 1.3 million yen for the rest of the garden construction
In addition to this, I also had to pay for the mortgage on the land. My bank let me pay only the interest for the first 12 months. It added up to 133,274 yen in 2024 (since only the interest) and 1.2 million yen until moving-in in November 2025 (I had to start paying the principal too from May). I’m using the moving date as the cut off, since until then one has to pay rent and these costs at the same time.
Without the water pipe connection work, with a cheaper garden, a lower land deposit, and a faster timeline (so less mortgage) I think one can push down the necessary cash to around 3 million yen. But don’t forget to also account for the moving costs and buying some new furniture, so I wouldn’t cut it too close.
