Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back to the Buying a House in Japan podcast. i I know we say this often, but we have a super duper duper special guest today. The specialist guest.
Speaker: We are joined today by our good friend Fumi, who has been helping us with our Beppu project, the Beppu Hot Spring Rental.
Speaker: I know we've talked a lot about the person on the ground in Beppu helping us and we've mentioned over and over again how invaluable uh it for me has been to helping us get this house set up so welcome fu me she just came in we were supposed to do a meeting we're like fumi you want to podcast and so to be fair we've we've thrown fumi into the the fire here yeah i'm getting nervous don't worry how are you doing today yeah i'm good i'm good yeah how long have you lived in bet before I think I've been living here for almost 10 years. Originally from Miyazaki? Miyazaki. Okay. yeah
Speaker: What brought you to Beppu? My husband found a job in Beppu. So we moved here from Tokyo. Nick's a legend.
Speaker: we We got to get Nick on here next, Joan. Nick's from Alaska, right? And where did you study English? I studied English in San Francisco. oh that's right. Yeah. for you Almost two years. Okay. yeah California connection. California connection.
Speaker: So we got connected with Fumi. So we went to university in Tokyo at ICU. And there we met our friend Reiko. When we had bought our house in Beppu, she actually just connected with me on LinkedIn. And I saw that she was living in Beppu was like, what the heck?
Speaker: So I contacted Reiko. We met up when we got here. And I think we met you maybe at a pizza party at your house. yeah Or is that where we first met?
Speaker: I think so. You're right. And we had been like, Reiko, we need someone to help. And reco I was like trying to get Reiko to help us, but she was moving to Kyoto. So through this connection network, we got in contact with you, Fumi. And since then, thank you so much. It's been a lot of work, I know. but We thought it was going to be a simple project, but it's become ah a big project at this point.
Speaker: Juggling me and Take abroad while we were hoping to get stuff done on the house. Sato-san, people that have heard our stories before, has been a difficult person to work with. And Fumi has very expertly been navigated that entire situation.
Speaker: So Fumi, we want to jump straight into it. but We have not actually gotten the Sato-san renovation updates and dramas. Most of our listeners have some inkling knowing our last episode, we had we did predictions on where Beppu was. Me and Joey held off till now because we want to chat with you. But how's your experience been with the legend Sato-san?
Speaker: and And to be clear with everyone, Sato-san is an alias, so it's not actually his real name too. How did you meet Sato-san? How did this all happen? Oh, I think I found him because a one of my friends used him to fix... I remember talking to that guy at your party.
Speaker: Yeah. He had done like a deck or something. I forgot his name. And the Australian contractor recommended it. He said he can't do the job, but I know somebody. Yeah. So they didn't actually recommend him, but he... No, the Australian guy knew...
Speaker: satto So introduce me that he can do this job. But I don't think the Australian guys knows okay what kind of person he They knew his name maybe or saw him on a flyer somewhere.
Speaker: I want to know your first impression of Sato-san. I think we've, I've said it a few times on the podcast before where we interviewed two contractors. One was like a company and I remember two guys showed up from that company and they, they kept pushing for the unit shower. I remember that they were like, you need to shower and the unit kitchen.
Speaker: And then we interviewed Sato-san. And Sato-san was like, yep, I can do horikotatsu. I can do custom bathroom. So we were like, oh, he's he's excited to do all this custom stuff. That was my first impression with Sato-san. Did he seem trustworthy to you initially? or what it Any initial impressions?
Speaker: your firsttain push Standard Japanese contractor.
Speaker: They don't think he was weird or anything. It was like the first time. He was angry and polite. and I agree. yeah I didn't think he was weird either. don't I don't know. Yeah. He had a very can-do attitude. Me and Joey had been bumping into this a lot. And he was just like, yep, no problem. And we're like, oh, okay.
Speaker: Where the original contractor's like, no, we can't do this. Impossible kind of thing. Yeah. That first contractor was like maybe pushing their... Opinion. Do stuff easier.
Speaker: I don't know. Do you think we should have gone with the first contractor? Good question. Did we make a mistake on Sato-san?
Speaker: I guess. Right now. this were we're happy we're overall we're sore We're not blaming you ever when we just did this. Okay. We should have gone with the bigger contractor, you think? We would be done by now, you think, if yeah if we had gone. Yeah, obviously.
Speaker: And I don't think the quote was that much more expensive. It was a little bit more expensive, but I don't think it was crazy. But would we have a horikotatsu three meter sunken wood table? Probably not.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And in... After the, what call that, estimate? Yeah. Sato gave us, was reasonable, level nice price.
Speaker: But you guys kind of asked to do some more stuff. Yeah, we kept adding on, which is not cool on our end. And then maybe if you go for the different contractor, it would be more like really expensive.
Speaker: I don't know. Yeah, we did tack just for the record, we, Sato-san gave us a itemized quote at some point early on and very quickly we tacked on a million more things. Yeah, not, not cool on our end and maybe i do honestly think that part of the issue is that he is ah pretty poor with his own finances and business and was never really sure.
Speaker: Like I was never, he lost the invoice itself or he lost his own quote and he kind of like came back and was like, how much do I owe you guys? Or do you remember there was some confusion there? So yeah I do think that part of this whole story is that he he's a little bit disorganized himself and both in his business life and personal life. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: His original estimate for us. So he gave us quote, I think in like November, December. And he was like, this will be done in two to three months. I remember, right? Yeah. And then. crazy Crazy timeline.
Speaker: We're sitting here 15 months later. a lot lot of lessons learned. So again, we're very thankful that you've been coordinating. But what were the first signs of concern on your end?
Speaker: Do you remember? I guess it was a while ago. What? First concerns like, is is this guy tricking us? What's happening? Yeah, he's got weird after a few months.
Speaker: The first, maybe, True Bart's line was like, his mom died and he had to go back to his hometown. And so was an excuse that he couldn't work on this house for a while.
Speaker: I didn't even know his mom died. Yeah, and then somehow he got injured. and His leg. His leg, and then he sent us that bandage bandage photo. Yeah. if you're Strange photo.
Speaker: Yeah, half, I don't know. Could have been fake photo. Yeah. Yeah. Looks like he was not in the hospital. I agree. I think that was the first warning sign too. Up until then, like, all right, Satosan, ready to go. Like he came in here quick and started tearing up the floor and we're like, good sign. Like he did some big demolition quickly.
Speaker: And then we left for Christmas. And then that's when the mom story, hurting his leg story came up. i I agree. I think that was my first time for concern as well. Yeah. And by that time, we paid him half to start.
Speaker: Is that right? or maybe 25. We paid him half of our initial what we ah were asking him to do. Yeah, up front. Yeah. and Okay, so that was strike one, concern one. I think all of us looked at that photo like, what? You fell off a ladder and impaled?
Speaker: He said he got impaled by a pole or something, right? Yeah. And then he was back. Not limping. Not limping, no issues. We're like, okay. um was What was the second situation? I think we were coming back and we had had Fumi, you had been contacting him a lot and he was not responding.
Speaker: I really only remember the that first one and the very most recent one where he hadn't eaten for three days. I forgot everything in between. yeah the The jail. he would keep kick at one point, yeah there was a time span where there was no contact for a long time.
Speaker: I was still messaging him online at that point. Fumi, you were messaging him. No contact. And then all of a sudden, at some point, he came back and he was like, I've been in jail. They confiscated my bank accounts, went through all my stuff. Something involving his ex-wife was involved. And like, need you guys to pay me cash.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. So ex-girlfriend took his money. from the bank account and everything. So he didn't have any cash at the time. And then that's why want you guys to pay in cash.
Speaker: Oh, the ex-girlfriend had access to his bank account. So if we sent him money to his bank account, she would just take it is the story. No, the police is gonna... No, no, no, police or the other... Oh, also the other contact...
Speaker: customer, sue him, and then cancel their contract. So Sato had to pay them back.
Speaker: They found the money, he didn't have the money because the ex-girlfriend took. So if you guys send the money to his account, so He had to pay the con, the old client back. Yeah, or something like that. just He did take on a second client at a certain point. i was competing with us. I remember at the very beginning, he was like, okay, I have another customer.
Speaker: you guys got to go fast or or something, right? That's his strategy, huh? Yeah. Could be. I think, yeah, I think in the end, he
Speaker: he He stopped working for you and the others at the same same time. Right? Tricky guy. I don't know. him I remember because we... So I would have... I was hanging out with him a little bit while I was here. I'd befriend him, man. I was trying to befriend him.
Speaker: And he was downstairs. So I would make him coffee every time he would come here. The but the black coffee. He eventually told me that he likes lots of milk and sugar. And that was funny after giving him black coffee for a month. But... i I asked him about his other clients and I said, which house do you like working on more? Just not, not thinking about the money, like which, which job is more enjoyable.
Speaker: And he said this house. And I was like, ah, you're just saying that. I was like, all right, why this house? And he was like, there's the other houses in the forest. There's snakes in the forest over there. remember you said that. He was afraid of the heavy.
Speaker: We got to just keep some heavies out front here so he doesn't come back now. What do you know why he so the so Sato is not his real name, but that's actually a name he gave himself.
Speaker: Do you know why he's going around working under and an alias? I asked Joey, I was like, are we getting scammed? There's been a couple of characters who have given us aliases that weren't their real names. And are they tricking us?
Speaker: think. He told us he moved to Beppu because he married to the woman who is from here. So he changed his name to the woman's name. yeah name But after divorce, he kept it, kept using it because it's more convenient.
Speaker: Is that normal as a Japanese man to take your wife's name or is he like know trying to change his identity? not common but some people do yeah okay maybe because it's that you're in the area it's like this this area is all owned by ita and stuff like that right so maybe it's a branding yeah yeah seem local Okay, so fast forward.
Speaker: Fumi, you've been contacting Satosan via line. He almost never responds to right? He doesn't even read it. Yeah. Fumi's taking on our phone right now. It's like a ball. We're like, always hey, Fumi, can you check in with Satosan or take a photo? He has not read.
Speaker: but We owe him like $10,000. We were prepared to ah pay him in cash, have the cash ready. He's not even reading our messages. and know do Is this very unusual?
Speaker: for yeah very very like Yeah. Your contractor in Miyazaki, when you had your house renovated, any similar issues or zero? No, they're a business yeah person that never happened to me like this before.
Speaker: to Do you think that, all right, here's my theory on Sato-san as ah the whole thing is that I don't think any of these stories actually happened to him, getting his leg hurt or maybe his mom passed away. I'm not sure.
Speaker: But what are some other things like going to jail and all that stuff? Like maybe he did get sued, but I don't think he got in jail it went to jail or anything like that. I think that he is a disorganized person in both his business life and personal life, had to take on more than one job and just couldn't be honest with us about that. That, hey, your house is going very slowly because I have, I need the money. I have to work on these other things. He just couldn't tell us that. So he came up with like wilder and wilder stories. yeah yeah Is that your yeah understanding? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Compulsive liar. Compulsive liar. All right. Let's see some of these messages. I see you pulling out any. He just didn't respond to you yeah looks like he was responding to you initially. yeah Yeah, but he hasn't responded.
Speaker: Oh, I saw a lot texts there. Big texts from him, huh? Since December? Since December? Yeah. It's February, end of February. I know. Okay, he so last... Last we saw him was November.
Speaker: Okay, let's let's talk to but one more incident. So was in jail. Fumi got that message. He wanted cash. Joey and I, we found... We got the cash. We got the cash, but we're not... Local, so we don't have a local bank. So we're limited to however much we can get from a 7-Eleven ATM.
Speaker: But fast forward, we got here. That last interaction was one couple months in November or something, October. October or November. October, we came to BetBoom. We had seen the house. We're like, okay, it's getting there, but it definitely needed more love. It seemed quite sloppily done. So we asked for a couple more things to add it on. We're like, Sato-san, we're happy to pay you.
Speaker: but we just can't pay you in cash all at once because it doesn't make sense. At that point, he was like, hey, I haven't eaten for a couple of days. Do you remember that? Yeah, you gave him... had the mushipane. Yeah.
Speaker: And coffee. Steamed bread and like a sweet, yeah, coffee. yeah From a Japanese person perspective, do you feel like he was lying to us? Most likely?
Speaker: I thought so. yeah Why would he say that, though? It's like such a strange... Like, if you're... Like, why lie? Either he's being honest or it's that's a very strange lie to pull on someone. I think he's lied... His lies just keep stacking up on each other, but he's just like, I gotta keep rolling with it now. I've gotta make him feel bad. Web of lies now. yeah So at the time, he said that he lived with his friends, right? Because he had to leave his apartment because he couldn't afford it.
Speaker: Actually, that's interesting. and I remember in that same conversation, we're like, just stay here. If you got nowhere else to go, stay here. And he teared up then. He was like, he was crying. Maybe, but he did. He definitely slept here at one point because so the bet we have two different bed frames and usually keep it in that room, but it was assembled. And in this room with the mattress on top of it,
Speaker: And like you and Sato-san are the only ones that have keys to this house when we're not here. So it was you sleeping here or Sato-san. Someone assembled the bed and put the mattress on. Probably hes he crashed here a few nights at least.
Speaker: Okay. Just interesting to know. ah Sato-san did take us up. Since... december we have not heard from him we owe sato-san 1.6 million yen which translates to about 10 000 ish us dollars he's done a lot of the work actually we asked he hopefully he was supposed to insulate the roof the bathroom's looking a lot better he did paint some of the wood although very very sloppily i'm actually i'm like what is he he's really rushing or he like
Speaker: I mean, this room we're sitting in is okay. You can see it in the corner, but there's there's worse parts. Yeah, like very, very fast, sloppy. Okay. Okay, so part of the last ah conversation me and Taka had about Sato-san, we made some predictions, like, are we even going to see him on this trip?
Speaker: And we thought $10,000, $1.6 million, that's a lot of money, especially for someone in ah in a dire situation such as Sato-san. I'm surprised that he's not coming back. Do you think that he either falsely thinks that he's been paid in full and we don't owe him any more money?
Speaker: Or he do you think he... He knows. Or do you think he's just, for whatever reason, he doesn't think the money's worth it to come back here and and talk to us? or like any We don't really know. Everything seems far-fetched.
Speaker: that's That's why it's so weird. but He needs money. He wants money. but ah Where is he? I don't know. He could be in jail.
Speaker: He hasn't talked to Fumi for two months. Yeah. I tried to call. I called him and I left a message. emailed him and everything i did. like and I could do it but just and So he's in trouble.
Speaker: He needs our help.
Speaker: Help and financially. Very strange. I would have thought at least $10,000 is a lot of money. I would have thought that he would have, especially if you like mentioned, Hey, Joey and Take are coming back in town for him. That means, okay, getting paid in cash.
Speaker: you think he would at least respond? Yeah.
Speaker: What do we do at this point? We just cut at this point. We're cutting, I think, right? No more. Like he he's he's not going to do any more work for us. I believe.
Speaker: Yeah, he took his old, his tools, everything's gone. He took some of Joey's stuff too. He took some, okay, part of that's our problem. So we bought some tools when we first got the house and I said, oh, you can use our tools if you want to use them. And I i saw him using them over the years and I was like, ah, they and they they're getting equally dusty with use. And I'm like, ah, he's going to think it's his or forget in quotes kind of thing. So he did take some of our tools, but it's okay.
Speaker: I'm going to let that slide. Okay. But he left his like little, in Japan, have these little vape cigarette things where you like stick a cigarette in a, okay but some sort of electronic thing.
Speaker: He forgot that here. And I'm like, all right, he's addicted to cigarettes. He would have came back. If he was still around, he would have came back to grab that. has 20 of them, I'm i'm sure. Okay. yeah Okay. At this point, i thinks I think it's done. This is the end of Sato-san.
Speaker: The looming question is, Tfumi, you think he will come back for the money?
Speaker: Or how do you how do you think this will play out? Like, how do we pay him this? should we Should we offer to pay him money or do we just kind of like let it? Yeah, I already texted him.
Speaker: They're going to pay you in cash. Yeah. So please contact me that they're coming on this day. look That's a pretty good message to someone that's cash strapped. Like, these guys are coming to pay you $10,000. They the money, all cash.
Speaker: all cash yeah but Please show up on this day. Okay, maybe he's really in trouble. Maybe he really... no be able to leave my message?
Speaker: I don't know. Just weird. Maybe he's gone to another prefecture with another girl, changed his name, again, starting fresh. I thought too.
Speaker: Yeah. He's not here anymore. Suzuki-san. Suzuki-san. Oh no. Okay. and Okay. So I guess we maybe saved $10,000 question.
Speaker: question we We lost $200 in tools, but gain 10,000. I don't know. I think we should be prepared for maybe the next year to pay him, but we're not getting any more work out of him. I think he's, he's done. Yeah. i oh It's been a learning experience, but I think he's did a good, like a pretty good job.
Speaker: yeah Like I'm, Had he done this in two months, at whatever, a shorter timeframe, have been like, okay, good enough. Pretty. Yeah. Little sloppy on some points. But he was going fast. He was going fast. Me and Joey were a little bit. Did he do the earthquake stuff? Taishin stuff correctly.
Speaker: Like now now looking back, like I do not trust this person to understand Taishin stuff very well. That's a concern of mine. I think maybe at some point we get a real specialist in to figure out what we would need to do to bring it up to code.
Speaker: All right, so Project Bapu, Jisoo, Jilux, complete. Almost, phase one, complete. Yeah, phase one, complete. Okay. Okay, phase one, complete.
Speaker: The end of this. Okay, and that, the crazy conclusion to the Sato-san story. rise and fall of Sato-san. Anything else to talk mention about Sato-san? Overall, untrustworthy guy, you think?
Speaker: Any other thoughts?
Speaker: oh Fumi's face right now wish I could take a picture. Would you hire Sato-san for a very small job? Oh, not even a small job. Not even a small job? small job. I give Sato-san B-. minus B-. minus What would you give him, Jerry?
Speaker: B-.
Speaker: B. No, B. I think B. Okay, Fumi. Fumi really has the most is guy, like that initial November. We don't hire people because just because they're nice guys. Usually some... Fumi's looking at a C, I think. c plus.
Speaker: Yeah. D? C. C? C. C's get degrees. C's get degrees. Good enough. The house is is almost there.
Speaker: Fumi, we want to chat to you about now phase two. Phase two. So since we're some of the last things we talked to Sato San about was like, hey, can we get the house painted?
Speaker: we joe and I are here in winter and it's pretty cold. Luckily, we have the ACs and they all work, but we were thinking about double painting the windows. um What else are we thinking about? i think that's about it.
Speaker: Clean up the garden clean the garden outside. Clean up the power wash the driveway, paint the house, maybe put a wood facade up.
Speaker: Is that it? Yeah. And the windows. We got we had it. had a clean. How about bathroom? The unfinished bathroom. Oh, the shower. Yeah, we don't know what to do. So we have the cedar, the hinoki wood in there.
Speaker: And we know it's, you go to any of the onsen here in Beppu when they have the hinoki tub, right? It tarnishes. There's like a blackness. I don't think it's mold, but like the color changes, right? Mm-hmm. i don't think I think if we have Airbnb guests, they're going to think it's mold every time. They're going like, oh it's moldy bathroom.
Speaker: ah just Is there anything we can do to the wood to prevent that? I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. All right, Fumi. We're starting a little, not from scratch, but okay. the We you had a guy talk about the painting and he did he offer to do the window insulation?
Speaker: Who is this guy? You sent me his Instagram. Oh, yeah. du what Is this one person that gave us that quote for everything? It was like 3 million yen. and There's more than 4 million yen, I think.
Speaker: 4 million. Which one? The YouTube guy. The YouTube guy. Is he the same guy that can paint? He can paint our house and he can also do the window. Yeah. yeah Okay, that's that's one guy?
Speaker: Yeah, that's one guy. Okay, what's his first impression? Did you talk to him? Okay, now now we're at the same... New chapter, new chapter, new chapter. New Sato-san. Sato 2.
Speaker: What's his name? you know his name? Mizobe. Mizobe. Mizobe. Yeah. He has his own company. Okay. Good sign. And I think his grandpa started the company.
Speaker: And the heat now he's the, how do you say? Third. Third generation. Generation. Okay. Yeah. So he's been doing that job for a long time.
Speaker: And he's Yeah, he has an interesting character. Tell us more. Tell more. But I don't know. If you want more serious guy or Mizube-san, think he does professionally, but has some...
Speaker: city sky or measle bear song is i think he that's clo faally but ahili has some I like the character. I say we go interesting character.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. yeah He's from Beppu. yeah he's um but He's from good sign. Good sign. Not going to run away. Okay. Okay. Do you feel like, ah did you meet him or just only talk to him on the phone? I met him like three times. Oh, three times. Okay. Did you like him?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. I liked him. Okay. Yeah. Any, any other concerns? High energy. in if you like the kind of I don't know it depends on if you like normal like Japanese business person king he's not like i think funny has yeah character character like I like that yeah we've been talking with Sekisui Haim home builders just on oh yeah a different project but very much like
Speaker: My impression of of Japanese, like ah a normal Japanese business is a lot of, they they do what they do and they don't like to do anything different from what they do. So if you're saying, oh, could you do, so for example, were talking about a facade on the outside of the house and Seki Suihaim, they were like, no, no, no, we like we don't do the facades kind of thing. So I like the Sato-sans and the Mizobes of the world for that reason. They seem like they can, they're a little bit more flexible with what they can handle, even though you got to take the bad with the good there, where there's a little bit of um a wild card in Japanese society.
Speaker: yeah Okay. Mizubei-san, let's go. He's going... i think we're going to move we want to move forward with the window insulator. So we're going to change the windows? or double? Double window is cheaper than the whole window. They just put like a second window on, right? Yeah. or you lose space, I believe.
Speaker: We don't use that window sill anyways. I guess all we'd probably do all windows either new... it's So that's the more expensive one is a new window. Yeah. And the cheaper one is just double window. Double, yeah. Okay. um Which one do you think we should do?
Speaker: Which one is going to be warmer? du in The new window? I think both are... I don't know which one is warmer, but it depends on your budget too because it's so expensive expensive. It was about, what, 3 million yen or something? 4 million yen?
Speaker: It was 1 million different. 1 million yen different, but the subsidy is pretty different too, right? Oh yeah, if you can't. So 1 million yen difference is about $6,000 US. s think for that, would be, it's a no brainer to the more expensive one. The better one. Yeah.
Speaker: I think we're kind of like, let's just get this house done correctly versus Fumi's pulling out some papers here of the quotes. What's the damage? yeah okay Double window. Double window, 2.8 million yen. That translates to pretty much 20,000 US dollars.
Speaker: This includes- A little under 20,000 yen. Him taking out all the windows and replacing them, which not not bad. okay what What is this one right here? This double window?
Speaker: Oh, no, this is double Wait, what is this one? Double window is This is the change in the whole. Okay, double window. so just adding another window on top. twenty k twenty k Changing the entire window, Joey, 4 million yen.
Speaker: 4 million yen. That's 25, 26,000. So pretty dang expensive fu me do you know if it includes We have some for listeners out there, over time earthquakes happen in Japan, the structure shifts a little bit and some of our windows and doors, they don't close properly, especially in one of the bedrooms. If you just close that door resting at an angle and then there's a little gap, the they don't close properly, the windows.
Speaker: There's a little gap. Do you know what I'm talking about? On purpose? Not on purpose, after earthquakes happen for, after decades of of small earthquakes in Japan, right? The windows and doors don't close properly.
Speaker: Do you know if that will get fixed with both systems? If he just puts a new window on top, is it going to have the same issues? If he replaces everything, the more expensive one, it would get fixed, right?
Speaker: Yeah, I think so. I think so. okay Okay. 1 million differential, which is, 1 million yen differential, which is again, $6,000.
Speaker: i think I think we go for the new windows just to get it done, get it done correctly. This is our favorite property. didn't say so. All right. Okay. So double window.
Speaker: Rise and fall of Sato-san. The fall of Sato-san and the rise of Mizo-be-san. Mizo-be-san. Okay. And we got one more paper here. What is this one? The painting. Painting. Okay, so we're also going to paint our house house black.
Speaker: Not too bad. 1.3 million yen. So that's about $10,000. Okay, Rumi's really pulling out more papers here. What's next one? This is you're not asking for, but Mizube-san said, if you want to change the, how can say it, front door?
Speaker: Want to change the front door. Yes, we do. Not too bad. 600,000 yen for $4,000 for the new front. Does that include the gate and stuff too? Maybe?
Speaker: No, gate. Okay. Front door. could paint the gate if you want. You want to keep it? No, no, no. Clean. Yeah. We want a door with a keypad lock.
Speaker: Is that not a key? moody Oh. um But like a beep, beep, beep, beep. It's not common in Japan. Not common. But maybe we can ask.
Speaker: yeah Okay. Okay. So these are you kept these so straight. You just have no no creases in them. Okay. So door, executive decision, Joey. Yes. Okay. So $4,000.
Speaker: We're going for it. Paint. Yes. Another $10,000. $14,000. $14,000. ten thousand dollars so for one fourteen thousand fourteen thousand dollars
Speaker: Oh, Brand new windows, 4 million yen. That's another $25,000. Jeez, we are... 40K. We are another 40K. That's how much the house costs total.
Speaker: Okay, let's think. But okay, for we can get subsidies, right? a little bit on the windows. Yeah. He said how much? I think you said 1 million. 1 million something. So maybe 10K off total.
Speaker: That's maybe 10K. Yeah. Anyone listening in Japan, government subsidies are available. We have not explored them because honestly, we were like, this is too much work. Paperwork. What do you think on the paperwork side? Is it very difficult or does he do it? think i think that dead they do music everything perfect for paper. So I ask, you just a need maybe income, right? Income. And also it depends on how can I, under which you,
Speaker: Which person? or Which person, which name do you like to use? Okay. Okay. Joseph. I think, contract yeah, there is like an income we use for this house. It's not Takamori because it's not owned by our Japanese business. But I i remember I got the income made. It's in one of our buckets or Tupperware things up here. So think it's my name.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. Okay. Because he said it's better to use you guys name not Takamori because Takamori if you use the company names suspicious okay yeah how sure how old is this guy but has energy yeah lots of energy okay and he's a boss so he has other people on his team okay That's good to know. Like that, that's, we've talked about that with Sato-san. We were like, how do we went with the first contractors? They were, they were a team. Like they would just, if they needed more people to help, they would just hire more people to help. Whereas Sato-san, he was always just him doing it all. So I do feel like I trust a team company more than like a just one person company.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. How long did he say this would all take? Did he give some kind of time estimates?
Speaker: Painting the house is about a month. Okay. And which one is the... But if you want to double window, they could like work at the same time. But if you change the whole time, like the whole like new...
Speaker: I don't know which one's better. He said like paint first. I think probably put the new window window first. Yeah. And then paint. Yeah. Okay. Did he, was he able to tint the windows? Make it so privacy? Oh yeah, he did. Okay, that's part of it.
Speaker: Plus tinted black house, tinted windows, sexy. Okay. Sexy, suey.
Speaker: All right. The fall of Sato-san, the rise Mizube-san. 2025. 2025. Another $40,000 we're looking at here. Jerry and bought the house for $40,000. We gave Sato-san another $40,000. jerry and i bought the house for forty thousand we gave sato son another forty thousand and Mizo's based on another 40,000 potentially.
Speaker: Hopefully we can spread this out. We're looking at a hundred and twenty k in total after this house. The realities of buying a 1970s house in Japan. oh Okay. any Any other questions for Fumi, Joey, while we have her here?
Speaker: questions?
Speaker: red flags with miso based on now that we're on like the we're on the cusp of any wo any worries yeah the same position we're in like when we first got the quote from sato-san like any anything at all
Speaker: primi's holding in her face thinking no like he's it's okay if it would you let him work on your house Yeah, he's... But I just feel solely for you because... No, don't feel sorry. It's funny. though And the if that guy, Mizube-san... Turns out the same. Yeah.
Speaker: I don't think so. I don't think so. But if happened, I just... Please don't feel any guilt. that This is all mine and Taki's fault if things go wrong. We're we're making lemons into lemons. We're making a marketing material. I think the whole Sato thing was a big learning experience. Many people are listening to this and have been following the drama.
Speaker: Don't make the mistake of Sato-san. There's some early red flags. Sorry, very last thing. What would we have done differently? Should we have cut him earlier? I think we were too far. We had already given him too much money.
Speaker: Yeah. And we were remote too. it's different We wanted things to move forward while we were not in Japan. And Sato-san was already here working. That was the easiest way to make that happen.
Speaker: I think that was part of it too. was It was like a yeah difficult to change things up while we're not here. Yeah. Okay. Fumi, thank you so much for your help.
Speaker: Please do not feel bad this You are you have to be the bad guy. Me and Joey are going to be nice to him. You're chasing him down. We absolutely do not blame you at all for anything here. You've been super helpful. we are Thank you. This house looks pretty good.
Speaker: it It's leveled up for sure. yeah Feel free to use it anytime. But we're now starting phase three. I think fay I call it phase three. Phase one was us buying it. Phase two, Sato-san. Phase three, Mizoube-san.
Speaker: Phase three. Okay.
