Friday, January 26, 2007

Yen Mortgages

The yen is weak. Experts have been predicting a strenghening yen for the last couple of years, and still predict that the yen will strenghten against the dollar in the long term. How about the short term? On January 18th the yen sagged to a near 4-year low against the dollar and near record lows against the euro. The Reuters article identified the culprit as The BOJ's decisiion to keep interest rates at 0.25 percent.

The yen is also cheap. As much as I enjoy living in Japan, I sometimes think of living in the U.S. These fantasies usually involve a house and it was during one of these reveries that I first heard of yen mortgages. Borrow dollars to buy your humble dwelling and you pay U.S. interest rates of about 6%. Borrow yen and your interest rate will be under 2%.

Yen mortgages have been around for awhile. I searched the Internet and found articles like this one, from 1996. They seemed to be more popular in the U.K. The only source for yen mortgages in Japan I could find is Banner Japan. They offer 1.3% rates on domestic and overseas yen mortgages.


Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Searching for Cheap Airfares

What ever happened to cheap tickets? Ah, for the says when I could fly to the U.S. stop in
3 cities scattered over the continent and get back to Japan all for around $700. Given a
weak yen and high oil prices it's not hard to understand, but it rankles me that I can't get a cheap ticket even when I fly during off season.

My recent mission was to purchase a ticket to Hawaii in March. Step 1 was to round up the
usual suspects. H.I.S. and No. 1 Travel seemed high, so I checked out the travel section
over at Yahoo! Japan. Prices here were cheaper, but when I filled in the contact forms, I found out that either the cheap seats had been sold out, or that fuel surcharges and taxes would be added and the price was back up to what H.I.S. and No. I were charging.

Next I tried travel websites like Orbitz and Kayak. These sites shuffle through myriad data bases to spit out price and route options. Surprisingly,the cheapest flights that they offered matched the prices I had found in Japan. Are we in a new age of borderless air fare pricing? I finally gritted my teeth and bought my ticket on the ANA site. Me wife and son will leave before me. They bought their tickets at H.I.S. The price was about 10 bucks cheaper than Orbitz's lowest fare.