The majority of folks in Japan don't usually buy a name plate until they buy a house - its rare that one would get one for their rented apartment because they would need to get permission from the landlord. Landlords generally don't permit residents to make any form of holes in the wall.
Many houses in Japan share the exact same address just like we do with our neigbour - the only difference between us and next door is our name - thus folks need to have a name plate outside the house to make sure the Dollfies get delivered to the correct parents. Name plates for houses are called "Hyosatsu" [表札].
When we first bought our house and was looking at the price of name plates, I was shocked to find that they generally cost more than 3 limbs. This "Nagashima" one for example costs 72,450 yen - for a name plate!
New houses generally don't come with a post box either so when we was looking for one I got the "You Wa Shock" treatment again when I discovered how much post boxes were - these ones cost 57,750 yen each!
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Some of the cheaper name plates costing between 29,400 yen and 13,800 yen.
The very plain "Suzuki" one costing 29,400 yen. How do you go about sticking your name outside your house in your neck of the woods?
After a while I realized why name plates cost so much. The mentality is such that:-
1. If folks can afford to pay so much for a house then folks should be willing to part with at least 1 limb or dolphin for a name plate.
2. Folks pay a lot for a house and want anything on the outside of it to look decent - so they should be willing to pay a lot for it.
This is a trend I notice about the Japanese market. Once a price has been set for a certain item or service then most manufacturers/sellers will follow suit and set their items at the market price.
I've spoken to a few comrades who run their own business making stuff and they are constantly trolled for trying to set a lower price for items in the market.
Are house name plates big business in your neck of the woods or do folks generally make their own/included with the house?
This is our front entrance. Decided to make our own name plate from a photo frame that I picked up from Muji for about 525 yen. All that was needed was a printout thrown together in Illustrator and two holes in the wall.
BTW, the sign on the postbox says "don't put in leaflets - there is a surveillance camera in operation and folks who stick in unwanted leaflets will have their face photo uploaded to the Internets."
Folks who live in Japan can tell a tale or two about the amount of leaflets they get daily - after I stuck this sign up however, the amount of leaflets has reduced to only a couple every few weeks ^^
You can see an example of how many leaflets I used to get before I stuck up that sign ^^
BTW2, the Valkyrie and Miku has been outside guarding the house/office for months now - no sign of them going missing unless they look like cucumbers.