Interesting to know, @Yohan. So a well-off foreigner who wants to buy a nice home for themselves, can.Yohan wrote: ↑October 29th, 2022, 9:36 pmIn Japan as a foreigner you can buy your own land/house or condominium unit but you will have to pay the full amount in cash before you can register it in your own name in the land title. Even if you are married to a Japanese national, it is not possible to do it (even not register it as 50/50) and banks know about that and in general refuse to offer any loan.
Thailand has similar requirements, but condominium only. No debts allowed for foreign owners to be registered in the land title. It is not allowed for a Thai bank or individual Thai national (including Thai wife and other family members) to offer money or even being a guarantor for a loan to a foreign national and register his or her name in the land title. In case of a foreigner, the property has to be paid in cash using foreign currency.
In both countries, Japan and Thailand, if a foreign citizen buys a property it must be free from encumbrances.
As we discussed several times here, foreigners cannot own title to land here in the Philippines. The closest they can get is to buy a land + home on a joint title with their local spouses, if they are married, and the land title would be in the local spouse's name anyway.
In theory it's possible for a foreigner to get a mortgage in the Philippines. However, he would have to show proof of local income, which is something very few foreigners have, as we all know.
The only person who, to my knowledge, successfully bought a large condo on a Philippine mortage is a French national who runs a leasing company and a data centre and has been living here for some 37 years. He bought it about 10 years ago and, as he told me, had to fill up 3 inches thick of paperwork to get it. It was an expensive property, though, in a posh estate called Rockwell. Don't remember how much he paid it then, off plan, but it must have been at least $700K USD.