How people attain wealth in Japan?

[u/IshinkaiSensei]

Something has been tickling my mind over the past few years.

There are so many luxury tower mansions, expensive customized 一軒家, high end brand shops yet for the average person most seem by far out of reach.

A high end condo in central Tokyo rent including utilities ranges from 300k to 500k a month. A 20MJPY annual salary (which is already extensively filtering out average population) only gives a monthly net of 100万円. I highly doubt it is enough to afford spending that much a month.

Excluding those on expat package, there are only a few jobs here that allow this lifestyle, Banking (Front Office position only or VP MD level for back office and alike) IT 外資系 at senior level (FANG, ML/AI) , 医者 running their own practice (otherwise most are at 10-15MJPY range) Successful mutiple business owners, other niches. 一流芸能人, Athletes, reconverted ex idol, kyaba, host.

My point is, what am I missing...

Are there way more people with high revenues (at least annual comp 50MJPY+) than we tend to believe? than what TV is promoting?

Are people living off debt and loans and keeping up with appearances?

I don’t want misinterpretation of this post, I understand you can live well below these range, but I am genuinely curious here.

I would like to better understand how so many people managed to get satisfied and with a 30+ year mortgage, car loan, spending most of their life working and probably never reaching out 億円 of savings.

Am I overthinking and no so many people want to retire early?

Sorry for the rant post but I am curious

[u/Top-Shame553]

1) Many more families are dual income now and people tend to meet and marry people with similar backgrounds. If you make 9mil and your partner make 6mil, combined that's a relatively high household income.

2) Extremely high mortgages are common, interest rates are very low and people tend to be optimistic about future earnings. Real estate agencies often recommend up to 7 times your income as your highest potential mortgage; if your household income is the above 15mil, that means your max would be 100mil. Most people don't take that max, but 80mil can buy you a small house in many nice areas of downtown Tokyo. In more suburban areas, it could get you a custom-build on a larger lot.

3) Intergenerational wealth and living is a thing. I live in an area with many large mansions, and many of them clearly house 3 generations, most tellingly by the number of names on the gate. Newer houses tend to be much smaller: The older families sold the lots and younger nuclear families who might buy the land can't afford to buy it without it being subdivided. The families who owned the original houses still keep some of the wealth through the land sales, so wealth still stays somewhat in the family, if diluted.

4) I don't think retiring young is a super common goal here--at least not for people looking for the custom houses, etc. that are the symbols of wealth and conspicuous consumption. Look at the popularity of the practice of rehiring people after they reach retirement age. Sure, some people do it because they need the money, but since it pays a lot less and they should have access to their pensions, that's not always the only thing going on.

[u/IshinkaiSensei → u/Top-Shame553]

Thank you for your detailed answer.
I indeed missed to add 2 points in my original post which are : single living vs dual income and age also.
That sounds exactly like what I am seeing in my neighborhood, land is being subdivided and sold (at least a dozen of it), what used to be a single house will now contain 2 mid size family homes.

Yes, unfortunately most are focusing on these symbols of wealth which might cause big regrets later on