Transcript
Speaker: In retrospect, let's say we put, what a hundred say we spent 130 total on this property. If you could wind back the clock, do you think a better base camp would be downtown Tokyo to spend that money? For example, we spent a bunch of time in Sanginjaya this trip, saw a bunch of friends there, And we were thinking like, oh, you know, Sangen Jai is a cool place. Like, what if the base camp was there? i think something that really stuck with me as we were driving away from Tokyo almost every time, Joey was like, this place energy draining, you know, and for us...
Speaker: Having that energy recharge kind of spot like where is going to give you energy? This is definitely a much better, you know, we're literally surrounded by a thousand butterflies very quiet huge lot So with that I think this was 100% the right move We can kind of have a retreat I think from the madness and I think that means a lot What about you?
Speaker: I agree. I think like the space that we have here like imagine not having the space. Like imagine a small kind of like, you know, mediocre apartment in Tokyo and and swapping this and doing all those meetings kind of back to back and all this stuff and then coming back to like that kind of cramped space for prolonged periods. It's not as recharging. As we think about, you know, how if I have a family or something like that, this is such a better spot than like central Cramp Tokyo. We have a car, which is not possible. I think it's Anginjaya. We have, again, the driving range, the pool. There's a really nice onsen we've been going to. So I like the suburban life more than the city life.
Speaker: Welcome back to the buying a house in Japan podcast, the number one Akia podcast in the world. We're having a lot of fun with these cameras. We got new video cameras and we're just, you know, selecting different and different locations to record podcasts at. We're getting better at it. We've recorded maybe a podcast a day, maybe two podcasts a day. So if you're watching this, you're probably, you might be seeing um a lot of the same type of climate over the span of a couple of weeks. Maybe we just bust these all out.
Speaker: Same clothes in every video. I didn't bring too many clothes on this trip. We'll get the fresh white teas today. Anyways, today we are recording from Tama Base Camp.
Speaker: hoof You're seeing our garden out in front. Doesn't look like much now. Before, though, it was like a super jungle. Then we cleared it. Then we put some, what do you what do you call this? Like light. Ground cover. Ground cover.
Speaker: Clover. Some other plants that don't grow too high. There used to be a bunch of, like just an hour ago, there was a ton of butterflies out here. Look There's like a thousand butterflies. Okay, there's a few. They're coming back. We have like a thousand little mini butterflies. They're quite cute. But yeah, I think this garden has gone through some changes. next goal here is we're actually going plant a big sakura tree there. And we are throwing a hanami party. We hope... Pizza party. More details coming soon. But today on the podcast, we want to just a quick recap of our Tama Base Camp property. For new viewers want to just talk through when we bought how much we bought it, what have we been doing. I would say after about a year and a half, this is really starting to feel like home now. I think we've done a really good job. I'd say
Speaker: V2? or I don't know where we're at. but Okay, so quick context on the property. Better than V1. Yep. This was our second Huckia we purchased. that right? Maybe this is our third. No, this is the second. This was number two. We bought this property in, I think, June, July of 2024. So it's been about a year and a half thus far We are located in Tama City. in Actually, is it considered Tama City? Yeah. ta We're in Tama. Tama City, which is about 30-40 minutes west of central Tokyo by kind of like limited express train. Our closest station is Seiseki-Sakuragaoka. And... um
Speaker: context on the property it's about 2 000 square foot lot the property itself is about a thousand five five hundred square feet um very very comfortable we had bought it it was already kind of reformed so so it had been in akia for what like renovated had already been renovated had already been renovated i'd say lipstick on a pig but we really made it into something i think we're very proud of at this point Property itself, though, we bought for $114,000. I'd say to date, we probably put in $15,000, $10,000, $15,000.
Speaker: fifteen k ten k fifteen k Yeah, about $15,000. And again, we've been i think we've had three or four dedicated, probably three dedicated trips to kind of level up this place.
Speaker: Have we done a lot of that was just that 15K? Most of that was just furniture, appliances, that kind of stuff. Have we done any like renovation? I don't think. Oh, the AC. New ACs, new electric panel. electric oh yeah we Yeah, we upped the electric panel. I think it was at of maybe 40 amps when we bought it. Can't quite remember 30, 40 amps. And we, yeah, bumped that up to 100.
Speaker: Yeah. than that, we've been just doing a lot of gardening work. We are very thankful to Linda, who is our property manager who lives... It's actually our neighbor that has been really taking good care of this property.
Speaker: um We also have a garage right underneath where we're sitting right here, where we do have our minivan. So we called it Tama Base Camp because it really is our base camp, and I think it has served that purpose.
Speaker: It is... We went into Tokyo a max of... Eight hours? Six hours total downtown Tokyo? Yeah. trip Driving time door to door, ah best record to date, I think 38 minutes from this exact spot to back, or Shinjuku back to here.
Speaker: Worse, probably about an hour 15, 20,
Speaker: Yeah, it's quite comfortable up here. like The whole time we've been here, we've been talking about like oh different things we unlocked on this trip. Let's rattle them off. let's go Golf course or driving range, should I say. Yeah, we have a driving range. You can kind of see it right in the back here. It's about five-minute walk. We went to, was that store? Hard hard Off.
Speaker: There's like a huge one here in in Tama. and we Book Off. Book Off, that's right. And we bought four clubs. I think we are trying to get better at hitting golf balls at the driving range. and Unlock the driving range. Unlock the city, pool, and gym. 420 yen a day to use this place. That's like $3. Joey did most of the legwork. He went like beforehand, and I think it it took ah quite a while from my understanding for him to get it, but exercise, pool, and gym unlocked.
Speaker: Uber Eats. Game changer. We have probably talked about this in previous podcasts, but the walkability from here we thought was lower. Maybe like B minus is what we'd put it at. um With that, you know, is one it's not that bad. We've walked to the station a couple of times. We're just perched up on a hill.
Speaker: We unlocked Uber Eats. I think a few smaller things like first IKEA trip we did. um For me, it was like first time walking to the station from here. Some smaller things unlocked as well. I think the next big unlock is taxi, calling a taxi from here. But honestly, we haven't tried Uber. Maybe Uber just magically works like Uber Eats magically worked.
Speaker: Talk more about Uber Eats. I think that's a game changer. What have we been ordering? what's been the How is it different than the U.S.? I thought I tried Uber Eats like last year, maybe a year and a half ago when we first bought this place, and we were not in the delivery zone for pretty much everything. It how I remembered it, so I didn't have high expectations, but maybe it changed coming back a year and a half later.
Speaker: so many things like so like So many things we have access to. Toya's Kitchen was one we were looking forward to. What did we get? We got Thai food yesterday. was pretty good, actually. Yeah. Groceries. Groceries.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Groceries. That was a big one, too. Order groceries. um Yeah, we were thinking of maybe doing a barbecue someday, and we could just you know get that all delivered. You're still getting hit with those surcharges. like It's cheaper, definitely, to go in person. I think it's...
Speaker: Still cheaper than America to order this stuff, but like, yeah, it adds a surcharge. But from like a productivity, we have limited time. We're like building furniture. We're doing things. I think it's it is worth it, especially given our proximity to food and stuff. Task rabbit next one.
Speaker: We should, yeah. It was really nice just having someone deliver food. We could eat, you know, it was late. We didn't need to drive somewhere. We had one and or two beers and didn't couldn't drive. so um I do upgrade though our location walkability probably closer to a B to B plus now Joey.
Speaker: disagree walkability why are you upgrading walkability we're walkability to different things that i enjoy more now so i believe we're very walkable to the driving range yeah the park next to is very walkable we are walkable to mcdonald's seiseki sakura gaoka the station is a downhill and we just take the bus up and i think it really at least in this weather has made has been quite a pleasant walk every day
Speaker: I don't know I'm upgrading the walkability. Driving range is the only only increase. So I guess it it goes up half a percentage. half Half a point for me. One point. I give it a B+. For given how much space we have, it definitely is, in my mind, be a B+. plus Okay. I'll give it a B. Okay. From a C to a B.
Speaker: I think up until this point, we've kind of been not shy to share Tama or like haven't been really proud to to show it off. But I think we're at the point where we're very like everyone that's coming in is starting to like it. We're feeling more comfortable here. We've done a lot of upgrades. Joey mentioned Ikea. What do we get at Ikea?
Speaker: Whole bunch of stuff. um The bedroom upgrade, I think, is maybe one of the bigger ones. Some lighting upgrades, but like those headboards in both bedrooms are nice. We spent like $2,000 to $3,000 at Ikea. we We drove our car not expecting to get so much, but of course we had a ton of stuff. But I think we've moved from the phase of livability to lightly furnished to now like well quite comfortable furnished, whether be small rugs and stuff.
Speaker: If you are in this Tokyo area, I think Ikea is probably the move. Rent a van. Go out there. But the garbage situation, the do bodu the cardboard is still a rough one. Joey was a hero yesterday.
Speaker: IKEA over Nitori? Yeah. i think Equals or has IKEA? Nitori, I think, is better for the furniture if it comes if you pay them to assemble it and then they deliver it.
Speaker: There's also more Nitoris in Japan than there is IKEA. Yeah, but I think also the the if you're coming from the States or somewhere within IKEA, it's very comfortable and familiar. It's like the same it was the same same setup. I have the the desk we bought here in the room upstairs. I was saying, like I didn't realize it when we purchased it. I knew it looked similar, but it's the exact same one that I have in Canada. You can get the same, you know, if you furnish your house in America with IKEA, you can get that same setup here. Yeah, so I think furnishing with IKEA has been good.
Speaker: Again, we have, we've, Joey and are very consistent in our design or things we like. If we like that light, we buy four or five of them. If we like that light bulb. So I think we are building kind of like a wish list for if we were to do this house again, it would be, we could do a lot of it online shopping wise, but it was good to go in person to just like pick out stuff.
Speaker: So we're feeling pretty good about the house now. How many trips has it been? So just like I want to kind of put it in perspective. Let's say someone else buys a house and maybe it doesn't need renovation. Probably Akias are all going to need renovation. But just how many, how long from renovation complete to like how many trips is that for someone buying a vacation home to get to like feeling quite comfortable? I think we've done four trips about two weeks here, roughly. Does that sound about right?
Speaker: Four trips. Yeah, I agree. Four trips over the past two year or year and a half. I would say if we we could do two trips, yeah. I mean, if if we it would be nicer to spend one month here and just really flesh it out. But also I do find that working in sprints for for us works better.
Speaker: um And this sprint, I think, was the most tangibly like, okay, we we leveled up. What's the plan for this house, Joey?
Speaker: Plan is no plan. i think um initially we were going down the Mimpaku path and in fact we're we're kind of halfway there. um We've gotten you know the emergency lighting and the fire check I believe completed. That is less of a priority for us now. We've had some guests stay but all friends and family um so far in this house and that's the way we're probably going to keep it for the near-ish future. We're not against having more guests. I just think Airbnb is a can of worms that we don't need, we don't have the headspace for at the moment.
Speaker: Yeah, again, I operate a couple of Airbnbs in Hawaii. And just like on this trip, I've had like two or three crises of small customers yelling at me kind of thing that like I'm not super eager. It's not worth the money right now, I think, for us when the grander scheme of things, some of the projects we're working on, I think, are are bigger and badder and more fun. I really think like the plan for TBC is to for Tama Basecamp is really keep it as that base camp, like true to its initial idea. There's a lot of things we have going on in Tokyo, like These this past 10 days we had three meetings per day pretty much three grand baby Yeah, so like a lot of stuff and you know a lot of our agents live in different places in Japan But they come to Tokyo often so Tokyo is like a great place business wise we can meet with a ton of people in a short time span um I Think it's like a base camp in that sense.
Speaker: It's close to Narita we fly in it's not like we have to get on another plane or drive for a long time And I think with the coin laundry, like really solidifies this as as a hub for the many different activities we're doing in Japan. We've done a better job of inviting people over here. And I think everyone that's come over here has been like excited about the property. They've, they said where many comments are like, it wasn't as far as you guys made it sound like in our podcast. That's also because we picked them up in our mini event, but yeah. and And one bad train ride. And that's, you know, they probably had good train rides, one bad. And you're like, never again.
Speaker: Yeah, but I think it's it's, if you are making a business, it is so good to have this kind of base camp. I think just the fact of like tired coming off the plane and you have a comfortable bed you like and a pillow and kind of just set up or rig, I think alone is 100% worth it.
Speaker: ah We've been sleeping well, I think every day, you know, although we have all these meetings, it's like, nice to not be sleeping in a hotel room and and having, you know, having your stuff where where you want it to be and kind of dialed in makes such a big difference to make us more productive in other things we do.
Speaker: In retrospect, I think I already know the answer because we've discussed this before. But in retrospect, let's say we put 100, say we spent 130 total on this property.
Speaker: If you could wind back the clock, um would you, do you think a better base camp would be downtown Tokyo to spend that money? For example, we spent a bunch of time in Sangenjaya this trip. Saw a bunch of friends there. And we were thinking like, oh, you know, Sangin Jai is a cool place. Like, what if the base camp was there? Would we be as productive? Would you enjoy it as much? Like from from so many different viewpoints, what what are your thoughts? Is Tama actually a great location?
Speaker: You know, there's there's a couple themes in there. First off, we recorded a podcast with Anton in Sangin Jaya, also with Danny Wilson, who lives in Sangin Jaya. So a lot of positive feedback on Sangin Jaya. That being said, I think something that really stuck with me as we were driving away from Tokyo almost every time, Joey was like, this place is energy draining, you know, and for us...
Speaker: having that energy recharge kind of spot like where is going to give you energy this is definitely a much better you know we're literally surrounded by a thousand butterflies very quiet huge lot so with that i think this was 100 the right move um sure might not appreciate but like we can kind of have a retreat i i think from the madness and i think that means a lot what about you Yeah, I agree with that. And not not that draining, energy draining is a bad thing. It's just like, you know, you need to be aware that that certain place, for example, is a net drain. You know, maybe it's a slow drain. Like you can still have a lot of fun in Sangin Jaya, but over time it adds up is is what it meant. And so a long-term you want an energy charging place. I agree. I think like the space that we have here, like imagine...
Speaker: Not having the space like imagine a small kind of like, you know, mediocre apartment in Tokyo and and swapping this and doing all those meetings kind of back to back and all the stuff and then coming back to like that kind of cramped space for prolonged periods. It's not as recharging.
Speaker: Totally. And I think as you as we think about, you know, how if I have a family or something like that, this is such a better spot than like central Cramp Tokyo. We have a car, which is not possible, I think, in Sanginjaya. We have, again, the driving range, the pool. There's a really nice on-a-sen we've been going to. So I like the suburban life more than the city life. I think it's the clearest thing, but...
Speaker: The car unlocks the rest of Japan. Like the car is is really like a backbone of so many of our other operations. So the ability to have the parking spot, like, like if you're a Tokyo person, like Tokyo is great. But if you, you know, think that this whole Thomas stuff, like, Hey, you know, that sounds like they made the right decision here. And you get a car, say you buy a place in the outskirts of Tokyo and you get a car, you will find that so much more of Japan gets unlocked because of that car.
Speaker: I think the most important factor is our property manager, Linda here. Jerry and I have talked about it a lot. If Linda leaves, we're kind of screwed. so i I don't know. It is partially like where the good people are.
Speaker: um That's another big thing. like That's a huge, yeah. Listeners here, you know we've said it a couple of times. If you're buying somewhere, you need to make sure you have someone on the ground who's... Buy where you know somebody. If possible, if not actively seek out, yeah so you know, someone to help because it is incredible to come back to a home that is already cleaned.
Speaker: The garden has been taken care of Linda, I think, is really enjoying. Hopefully, like she just planted this maple tree here and all these cool plants that I think is a win-win situation. But yeah, absolutely. if Without her...
Speaker: Yeah, it's hard. If we had a Linda andung and Sanginjai, I think that would also work. But I also think Sanginjai is too expensive at this point, given Tokyo prices. And we own this freehold, not land lease, which I know a lot of Tokyo places at this point are either leasehold or you can only rent them.
Speaker: Yeah, the Beppu, just thinking, comparing this place to Beppu. Beppu, we arrive, we got to take our stuff out of the, you know, the sheets out of the big Tupperware boxes with the dryer packs. Like, is this clean? you're Like, yeah, we wash it before we left, but it's been sitting for months. Like, I guess we'll use it for the first night. Like, yeah, there's those kind of issues when you don't, yeah, have a property manager.
Speaker: I think other than that, though, like we've been hearing a lot of, I think as Tokyo gets more crowded, these outskirt properties are are inevitably going to get more valuable, which I think is cool. You know, I think Tama is really ripe for that as the population goes further out. And I imagine infrastructures only get better.
Speaker: Everyone that comes to our Seiseki station is like, oh, it's a lot more like urbanized than I thought it was going to be. So we do really still get that taste of Tokyo. We're not that far. So. I'm a big proponent of Tama at this point.
Speaker: And we've actually, we just, on this trip, we met Catherine. We helped her buy a condo near Pudoland. Really good location as well. So I'm i'm bullish on Tama. I also think like we nailed it with the weather or like the temperature. under October is such a great month. And I think you'll just enjoy being in Japan a lot more regardless of where where you are when the weather is very nice. So you know october april may like those are the best months yeah ah next steps here i think we will be back in a couple months we're going on hitting the road right after this podcast actually but i think i'm personally excited that we want to install sauna in the back over there we want to put a big sakura tree here so this area is very well known for sakura and i think it'll be so nice to have a sakura tree right here we are planning to throw hopefully hanami party i think back in college remember we called it hyper hanami we took like a couch out and we brought it to it we we had like a really fun we took like the speakers from the shower and brought them out did you have a phone machine that i think we did i think it broke like in the middle uh but icu days that was uh when you're in university here
Speaker: I think this is we want to we want to show off the property. I think we're going to try to bring like a pizza oven. I know we've been saying we're going to have a pizza party ever every time. but little One of those blue tarps here kind of thing. Some benches.
Speaker: Invite the neighbors. I think Tama Base Camp is pretty much ready. couple small things. But i'm I'm very, very happy that this this property is is doing so well at this point.
Speaker: so Mission complete almost. Yeah, our best our best one. Yeah. yeah Any other thoughts, Joey, before we pack and pack up the stuff? and Any Tom of thoughts?
Speaker: Tom of thoughts.
Speaker: Parking here is like a struggle. You mean parking in? Parking in in our little driveway and and like none of our properties have good parking. This is pretty good parking if we had a smaller car. We decided to pick opt in for the largest car. So Vice maybe get a Honda Fit or Prius or something. I think that will go a long way. Yeah. Roads are small in Japan. And like even if your road is wider, like you're going to be driving down narrow roads.
Speaker: Yeah. cool well next up we have we're going to head to the coin laundry we're going to pack up we're heading to atami after this then we're going to shikoku and we're doing some surfing and checking out a couple more akias but man tokyo sprint number five or six at this point in the books we've we have a lot of exciting things we're cooking up here for both akia mart and our properties and content and new products i think it's been a Such an inspiring trip, although tiring.
Speaker: Sorry, Joey. know I've been packing the schedule a little bit too tight. Another thing we realized just real quick, outdoor lights, like so flaky here. I don't think we've had a good experience with outdoor lights yeah yet. All this solar powered ones, motion sensors, like they cram too much stuff in it and they just, the brightness is off. Like we like yeah not a great experience yet.
Speaker: All right. So still more to come, but I think again, at this point we are mission complete, Joey. If you haven't already liked our podcast, please hit that like button. It really does help us with every, every like. I think we are trying to grow and put more effort into this podcast. So thank you for listening and hopefully we can help you buy one of these houses soon.
Speaker: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Buying a House in Japan. If you find the show helpful or at least entertaining, give us a five-star rating. Takes five seconds and really goes a long way. If you or someone you know is looking for a Japanese home, check out Akiyamart.com, our English-friendly site that lets you browse over half a million listings. That's A-K-I-Y-A-M-A-R-T.com to find your dream home in Japan.
Speaker: If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at akiyamart.com. You can also find us on Instagram as well as TikTok, where we post properties, tips on the home buying process, and updates on our own purchases and renovations. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.
