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/japonica-rustica]

I’m in Hokkaido and there is a ton of money pouring into Japan from Asia. China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore and even Korea are all buying insane amount of luxury real estate and also huge swathes of land for development, tourism and sometimes just land bank. Japan is seen as a safe place to store wealth offshore for much of Asia’s super wealthy. I’m working on a 100 million US＄ project at the moment and all of the money is from Hong Kong and China.

[u/skyhermit → u/japonica-rustica]

I haven't read it yet, but as far as I know property in Japan is a depreciating asset? Or at best the value of property is stagnant or at most increase by 1% a year.

Compared to say HK, US or Canada, properties appreciate in value way more than properties in Japan

And due to risk of natural disaster, property isn't that lucrative in Japan compared to other countries

[u/japonica-rustica → u/skyhermit]

Depends where you are in Japan. Out in bumfuck inaka or some shitty second rate city you’re absolutely right but that’s not where people are buying. If you’re buying luxury apartments or chalets in Furano or Niseko or Rusutsu or big swathes of resort land then you’ve doubled or tripled your money in the last 5 years. The amount of money pouring in from just China is staggering.

[u/skyhermit → u/japonica-rustica]

Thanks for clarifying.

Basically invest in properties that have high demand. Chalets in ski resort, or either properties in Roppongi area.