Do you want to buy a house or invest in Japan ?
If you’re considering an international investment property, step one is to find a good real estate agent who understands the country’s regulations,
especially if you’re not fluent in the local language.
Next question is what sort of criteria for judgement do you have in your mind for finding a property ?
If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you’ll never find it.
How about crime rate ?
Good.
Japan is safe.
Having lived in Kobe, Kawasaki, Tokyo, Sydney, Gold Coast, London
and travelled over 25 countries, I can assure it. And crime rates are an important indicator to analyze when looking for an investment property.
Buying the property in a high crime country or area can be risky not only to you, but also to your investment or even to your tenants.
High crime generally reduces the values of properties in a given area.
A study in USA for example, found that a 10 percent reduction in homicides resulted in an 0.83 percent increase in housing values the following year.
Needless to say, people in Japan do care about the safety in the neighborhood.
I am not saying that you can’t make money in areas with higher crime.
There could be a good number of investments in areas with a relatively high crime rate. There are still?plenty of good people in those areas that you can make money renting or selling to.
But the important thing is to know what you are getting into.
It is important up front to decide what kind of risk tolerance you have and what types of areas you are willing to invest in.
But how safe is Japan ?
Once you’ve decided on what kind of areas(countries) you are looking to invest in,
you can start to research them. Always ask Google first.
Here is the some statical data on some developed countries by UN, GLOBAL STUDY on HOMICIDE 2013.