More people in Japan are choosing to buy instead of rent

My family and I rent the house we live in, but I've often thought about buying a place since a lot of properties here are very reasonably priced compared to my home country.

It turns out I'm far from alone in wondering whether renting still makes sense. A new survey of 2,908 people in the Tokyo metropolitan area found that the biggest reason people decided to buy a home was simply feeling that paying rent was a waste of money.

That answer came in at 26.4%, ahead of having outgrown their current home (19.1%), getting engaged or married (16.4%), and expecting or having a child (15.8%). You can see that for many people, it's not a major life event that finally pushes them toward buying, but the monthly rent!

Of course, buying comes with plenty of costs and commitments beyond the purchase price, but for renters like me, I think it's hard not to occasionally wonder whether that monthly rent could be going toward something we actually own.