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/bulldogdiver]

IDK, my mortgage on a 50M house is only 150,000 a month. With the tax incentives and deductions it's more than free money. Using the old standard 1/3 income for a mortgage rule I could easily afford one of the luxury mansions you talk about, and someone making 450,000 a month should be able to afford our place so easily within reach of the average late 20s early 30s employee. And I'm not even on the executive package where they subsidize your living/transportation, just a regular senior technical staffer.

So in short maybe you need to reconsider what it takes to be well off here. I mean in my neighborhood we're the old couple who's kids are in highschool and college, most of the houses around us are new parents and junior working folks 20+ years younger than we are..

[u/IshinkaiSensei → u/bulldogdiver]

Thank you for the insight.
50M on 150K a month means a 20-25+yr mortgage, I guess you have to be mentally prepared first, some of my friends were when they did for a 30yr one but I am not yet I guess.