Buying a small apartment in Tokyo

Hello, everybody
I'm Santiago from Buenos Aires, Argentina. I've been 1 month in Japan last year and really enjoyed it.
I'm planning to travel again next year, and I'm considering doing an investment on a small property. A 15 square meters apartment, in a not so expensive zone, so I could go there a couple of time every year, and maybe put it on short term rent with a real estate agent, the rest of the year.
I saw that there are websites with some small used properties for sale in the \6,000,000 range.
It would be helpful to get your advice and things to have in consideration before doing this investment.

Thank you!!

S

Prepare to pay cash. No matter how good a job you have in your home country, you won't qualify for a loan if you don't have a job and bank account with large balance in Japan.

If you have 6 million yen, you can purchase small apartment of app. 20 ‡u .
And the apartment is not located in rural area, you can find renter.
In Japan, yield on investment will be around 5 to 10 percent.
But, it is not easy to find renter for only short term.
When people rent apartment, they expect to live there for more than 1 year.

People here in Japan (locals) are used to entering into 2-year rental agreement, so there would not be many real estate agents that are used to dealing in short-term rental combined with the owner coming to use it himself a few times a year. Also if you are considering to rent it out far shorter term, completely like a hotel, you would need to furnish it, maintain it, pay the utilities, and advertise it, and that kind of administative work would be expensive that I would wonder if you can call it an "investment."

An apartment in the range of 15 square meters and six million yen, if it is in Tokyo, for example, sounds either run down (old) or out in an inconvenient location :(

And practically, the comment by Tokyonet is true about a loan. Also if you are coming only as Temporary Visitor, you will not be able to open a bank account to receive the rent.

In case owner does not have bank account in Japan, owner can appoint reliable person as their agent in Japan. Some companies or person handle with such management for foreign investors.