Global Insights

Japan: Foreign Home Buying Enters 'Trackable Governance' with Expanded...

Japan is advancing 'foreign home buying' from a contentious issue into a regulatory framework that is countable, reviewable, and manageable in layers: on one end, reporting obligations are proposed to expand from 'investment purposes only' to 'residential use,' and on the other, the registration process plans to introduce 'nationality/nationality proof' fields to accumulate underlying data. For overseas buyers, in the short term, it's not about 'cannot buy,' but rather about upfront requirements for transaction compliance and document consistency, increased scrutiny friction for hot assets, and reduced tolerance for frequent transactions.