My case is a bit of an outlier - I am not on his family registry; he’s not on my family registry. This means that we’re only unofficially married (the reason is that we don’t want to change our names as we’re both published authors). My husband is also a Japanese, though😕

Yes, I got a pair loan at Yokohama Bank. Most of the other banks didn’t bother to deal with a “complicated” case like ours, but BoY was willing because they have some experience with similar cases and our contract size was big for them. They are based in Yokohama, so our property in the center of Tokyo is worth a lot more than most of the properties that they have equity for in Kanagawa. The branch manager was very happy and accommodating.

We did not need any deposit. Our property was about ¥100M. Interest rate was 0.31% (variable). But we paid for fees associated with the contract in cash.

My advice is that, if you think your case is a bit different from most of other cases and “complicated” to some extent, try some of the banks that actually have humans behind the process. Usually it’s difficult for internet banks to deal with non-straightforward cases - I’d go for any major banks (UFJ, Mitsui Sumitomo, Mizuho…) or major local banks like BoY (Chiba Bank was also willing). I’d also try Prestia, if your property is expensive. Usually the max loan amount for a property is ¥100M, but Prestia has a product for more expensive properties. And even if the bank says the max loan amount is ¥100M, they actually approve higher amounts case by case basis. When I was looking, I got pre approvals for more expensive properties without deposit requirement, up to about ¥150M. I also heard that how high you can get depends on how much cash you actually have and show - banks feel safer to lend more money when they can see you actually have the cash if you want to use it.

I know some banks do pair loans if you’re engaged. You just need to ask individually, but I heard it’s a little easier than our case (unofficial marriage or de-facto marriage). In your case, I’d imagine you’d have more options if you do a pair loan with your partner esp without his PR. Of course it’s better and easier if you’re actually married, though!

Hope this helps!

Although I am married to a Japanese wife, I’m the sole loan applicant. She doesn’t contribute to the household income and the bank only cared about my income / health.

Yes, I got my PR for about a year before we bought the place.

We got the loan from SMBC(not PRESTIA which used to be Citi in the end, it was the developers choice and I looked around and the rates/products were the same as others.

20% is a large amount for a first time buyer. The silent expectation is that you can pull that from the bank of mom&dad so that the bank doesn’t have to take the risk.

If there’s a path to PR, I would go down that path first as it massively help (not just buying but owning property as well).

Without PR everything has this funny visa based expiry date on it, which increase the paperwork.