Japanese brokerage has features that surprise buyers arriving from other markets. One firm may act for both sides of a sale and take a commission from each. It is lawful and it is common.

Nobody explains this, because the people best placed to explain it are the people it pays.

These guides set out the structure. Not as an accusation, but because knowing the position of everyone at the table is worth more than any single piece of advice they could give you.

Who is paid, and by whom

• The person helping you buy may be paid by the seller as well. Dual agency, listing withholding, and what the 2025 reform did not fix.
• What a cheap Japanese house actually costs. Including the fee rule that applies to property at or below eight million yen.

How the transaction runs

• Thirty pages, read aloud, in Japanese, before you sign. The pre-contract explanation, and how to get it early enough to translate.
• The two rooms nobody opens during a viewing. Why the building condition survey is voluntary, and what it does not determine.
• Buying a Japanese house without being in Japan. Each stage from search to keys, and the documents a non-resident needs.
• Selling Japanese property from abroad. The withholding on a non-resident's sale, and what surfaces at the exit.

Where listings come from

• The akiya bank is a noticeboard, not an estate agency. What a municipal listing does and does not do for a buyer.

If you are earlier in the process, start with the full guide to buying property in Japan as a foreign buyer.