Transcript
Speaker: Jerry, I was telling Eric that you, when you type, the reason you don't use a monitor and a keyboard is like you look at where you type and you only type for two fingers, right? Yeah, so yeah on the record.
Speaker: Shut up. Don't even admit that. I only type with two fingers, my two pointer fingers. I never learned to touch type. So because like I don't, I mean, I know where the keys are, but I never did any like formal training to know how to touch type. So I use these two fingers.
Speaker: So I kind of have to look at the keyboard as I type But then as I'm writing a document, my eyes need to like jump between the two quickly. And if the gap between the keyboard and the monitor is too big, it hurts my, like I get dizzy or I don't know what it is. I can't do it. So I i can only work on a laptop.
Speaker: I'm the one that doesn't know how to edit a Canva. Okay. Like you're the software engineer. Your typing skills are trash.
Speaker: Welcome back everybody to another episode of buying a house in Japan. Besties are back. We got Eric in the studio today. We got Taki in the studio and we got myself, Joey.
Speaker: Welcome everybody. We got an exciting episode today. I've been told we should reintroduce ourselves, Joey and Eric. Joey, who are you? Who are we? My name is Joey, long time friends with Take since college.
Speaker: Take and I bought a house in 2023 in Japan. Eric bought a house, might've been 2023 as well. And we have been on a journey ever since exploring the real estate world of Japan. Taki and I have together bought six houses. Eric's at three or four at the moment right now.
Speaker: Just two. Three cars though. Three cars, right? How many cars, Eric? Three cars, houses. There go. There we go. In addition to that, Taki and I have started the Akiyamart website and the Akiyamart Direct purchasing program where you can buy ah remotely and have ah utilities handled for you as well. So we'll do another.
Speaker: We'll talk about that a little bit later. Eric, who are you? I'm Eric. I'm a general contractor in the state of Minnesota, United States. And I was one of you guys' first consults slash clients to buy an Akia. And ah ah grew up in Japan, about 20 years of my life, my young adulthood.
Speaker: And I was searching to get back there and then I found these two guys and I was like, wow, what a cool bromance while I get an Akia. Oh, yeah. Take, who are you?
Speaker: ah Who am I? My name is Take. I live born and raised in California, but my dad is from Japan. So I went to Japan a lot. I am a licensed real estate agent in California and felt I think Joey and many other people felt it priced out of the market, even though worked 10 years in tech here.
Speaker: Yeah. When we both got laid off from our jobs, decided, let's go buy a house in Akia. But Yeah, and it's been a fun two years, boys. i'm Looking forward to the next couple. But today we have some fun topics. Before going into it, though, Eric, you just got back from Niigata, right? Tell us about your trip.
Speaker: Yeah, I was there for a little over a couple of weeks, I think. um It was a fun trip. I got to finalize my Horigotatsu Yakiniku living room.
Speaker: What is that allow for the listener who doesn't know? So i have but i have a sunken coffee table in my tatami room which has a grill insert so I can just sit there and grill fine slices of beef.
Speaker: And it has an external fan outside the house so you don't have to worry about like a range or hood or anything like that. Yeah, and had a number of ah different tradespeople help me facilitate and get it get it off the ground.
Speaker: Yeah, so that was probably the most exciting part of the visit to get that done. This guy's got a JBBQ restaurant inside his house now. Personal JBBQ. You guys ever watch Richie Rich growing up, that movie with Macaulay Culkin in it, where he's like, you have your own McDonald's? Yeah, McDonald's.
Speaker: Yeah, you got your own JBBQ. yeah What have you cooked on it besides meat? Have you cooked eggs on it or anything? or like Can you? No, it is a grill. I'd have to put probably like a flat pan on top of it.
Speaker: No, I had my, my good friend Ito-san over and then I had Takahashi and he don't, I can't say his name. Another one of the guys that I worked with on the gas from the gas company.
Speaker: And when they came over, I was like, Hey, I've got everything guys. How much meat do you want? 300 grams. All right, cool. 300 grams a person. Right. And yeah, Got rice, which, by the way, they told me, I was told by my guests that my rice was better than their rice at home.
Speaker: So i was like, oh. Niigata's famous for rice, right? Yeah. Niigata is famous for rice broaching. Yeah. What's next? Sorry. Oh, ahead. Continue what you were saying. I was going to ask, what's so what's next for the house project-wise?
Speaker: I got to finish the toilet room. I mean, it's it's going to get like little just trim and the ceiling put back in and stuff like that. ah The guest room is done. So we have space for guests.
Speaker: I think the next big thing would be like kitchen up do maybe like getting a tint on the windows. If that's a thing, if I can get that because it was hot. I bet it was hot when you were there. Right. yeah She was man.
Speaker: boiling and I had my winter curtains on. And so this is a thing, right? That ah one of the things that I learned that I wasn't really accustomed to, even though I had lived there for 20 years, is that everything is set up for summer and winter.
Speaker: So like you change all your sheets, you change your curtains, you change like your clothes, your, you know, your accessories, your appliances and stuff to all be set up for the summer.
Speaker: So like I had black curtains because I like black, but it's not good in the summertime.
Speaker: In our head, winter bedding, which is like soft and fuzzy, like flannel type bedding. And we had to change it over to like summer bedding, which is like silky spoon. yeah Hi, what's your, what was your biggest surprise this trip or did it go as expected? What was actually a curve ball in this trip? I know like all of us planned like we're gonna do this, this, this, like what was like, oh, what the hell?
Speaker: My third car. So number three. Yeah. I mean, I hope to receive it when I was there. i had purchased it before I got there and everything. So I was just hoping to kind of punch in the paperwork and I accidentally did my parking,
Speaker: slipped my parking certificate i did it under my personal name but i only my affidavit form to purchase the car was no longer valid so if i wanted to get it i would have had to purchase it with my honko from my company but i did my parking certificate in my personal name and not my company name if so facto i couldn't take re receipt on my car so my friend is going to make j bureaucracy mondays Yeah.
Speaker: It's a perfect example when you you actually have everything, but you have a stamp for this and you have this and this and they're in two different names, even though you own both of them, they won't accept it. I have a pretty sick ah personal honko. I got a Snorlax with my last name in it.
Speaker: Joey, I don't know why. You got a Snorlax? It's a Snorlax with my last name on the stomach. And i'm like, oh, this is actually my honko. And they're like, yeah, it's legit. I need to stand out less there. So I got regular plain Jane honko.
Speaker: Oh, dude, my company Honko does look really sick. I'm really happy with it. But yeah, i should, once I get my visa, I'll probably get, now you've given me a new idea to get some really cool Honko.
Speaker: How do we describe hanko to the listener who's not ever experienced hanko? It's like a stamp instead of your signature, right? In Japan. Exactly. You get it registered.
Speaker: I sign a lot in the US, like checks and things. So I actually have like a stamp with my signature. had like a stamp made with my actual signature. That's cool. Yeah. So it's the same thing, just not your signature. Now it's a symbol that represents your signature.
Speaker: Yeah, just in Japan, you have one that you need to take special care of and you get it registered with City Hall or whenever you get your Jumihyo or Zaidu card or whatever.
Speaker: And that's what you use to sign stuff for. And they really check this stuff. Who checks signatures in America, right? and Does anyone ever like comparing two signatures?
Speaker: like I feel like never, but I believe they do that kind of stuff in Japan. My bank does. They've rejected a few of mys. I remember we were incorporating our company, Joey, and we got, i think your signature was sent back or something like our motto is like, Hey, this is not the same as this or something. I think think you did the same to me too.
Speaker: and but And you need to, yep ah you need to be careful when you honko, when you stamp things as well with your honko, because like, You need to make sure it it lands properly and they're like i signed up but dowel things. And I don't think the right side up matters that much, but you need to get a clear imprint of it. And it's easy to mess that up. I find have one hot go that has a dot on it that then they they and Yoshi said he's like very specific. That dot is to be faced up.
Speaker: And he was like, so if you do this one, and it that ah though for the company, because there's three different ones, there is one that specifically had that. Okay, guys, that leads us into our topic of the day. We're going to do another round robin.
Speaker: Six things only Acura buyers will understand. Same deal as last time. we do ah Should we do a snake draft or should we just go full circle? What does snake draft mean?
Speaker: It would be like last goes twice in row. it's like in Catan. If you go last, you put your settlement twice. jas on wings Wingspan rules? No, no, Catan, bro. Okay. All right. So six things only Acquia buyers will understand. We have not previously discussed this. It's going to be, hopefully you guys don't steal all, but Eric, you just got back. Start out start us off.
Speaker: What's one thing yeah only Acquia buyers will understand?
Speaker: That gosh, I was hoping that to be first. yeah mean I'm going to go with the easy one. the The easy one. Akia buyers will understand trash really fast. Like you will, you might not day one, but you will eventually have a very good grip on understanding trash culture and and being really neighborly and orderly with your trash.
Speaker: Why is that? You'll get scolded otherwise and your trash just won't get picked up or it'll get put back on your property or yeah. Any number of different ways that you might get told that you so you didn't do it correctly.
Speaker: But fun fact, we've seen our neighbors not do it correctly too. So our Japanese neighbors. Busted. Yeah. i I see that too, actually. so in Tama, the bottles need to be, you need to remove the label from the bottle and then separate the cap off kind of and and the the twist, the ring, plastic ring.
Speaker: Oh, the plastic ring. We have a tool for removing. over yeah So yeah the frustrating thing about trash is like, but like Beppu and Tama, very different systems. I'm sure Nii got to say it's not a federal nationwide system. It's every municipality.
Speaker: because like Tama Inagi City right next to it have different systems as well. So it's like every municipality gets the opportunity to impose their own trash rules. And it would be nice if they just pick one.
Speaker: yo Yoshi came to visit, right? My realtor for listeners came to visit and stay at our place to watch the world famous fireworks for Nagaoka.
Speaker: And, um, he witnessed the trash cause he was staying at my place. And he said that my trash is crazy. It's the worst that he's witnessed. Yeah. Like in your garage, like you have a trash pile, right? Like the way are yeah they're strictness.
Speaker: The strictness. Yeah, the strictness level in my area, he said, is on another level. That's interesting because i because Tama is more strict than Beppu. And so I just assumed, oh, maybe the more rural, the more relaxed. But like I guess that's not correct.
Speaker: In Aomori, it's definitely relaxed. If you go outdoors. How good of a feeling is it coming back to America and just like having trash and seeing a trash can just chucking anything into a miscellaneous trash It's like the best feeling. I have post-trash anxiety now.
Speaker: So I think I'm more aware. i don't i don't treat it like as such because I'm just so like hyper aware of trash now. yeah I love the feeling. I'm not sorting. Just like throw a bottle into a trash can or something like acid. No one's going to come and get me.
Speaker: Another thing that I find interesting about the trash in Japan, and again, Tama is a little bit different than Beppu, but this is mostly based on Beppu experience is they burn a lot of plastic in Japan. So the Moerugomi, the, so Beppu is Moerugomi is it's burnable, non-burnable, and then recycling and plastic. So all the Puda styrofoam, all that stuff goes into burnable.
Speaker: So at least in Beppu, they're burning all this plastic in Tama. They separate out the Puda, but they probably just burn it as well. What's weird is they have papers separated from burnable. At least do my new newspapers. yeah Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: Well, we have cardboard newspaper. That's one day. And then we have like just regular paper, like napkins, trash paper. And then we have another one that's like the styrofoam and burnable. Okay. We call it burnable plastics.
Speaker: So how many trash bins? Like if you were to do this five. Yeah, and I think we're at four in time. ah And that was three. I feel like right. and That was probably the most lax. And I remember Jerry, we we got so much cardboard. we We're just going to like calling ourselves Dom Boater King, which is like cardboard kings because it's just like Oh, geez. How much would you pay someone to just store your trash for you? Eric, let's let's say I'm an American.
Speaker: I come to Japan and I'm just like, I'm go to throw everything in this one bag. I will pay three times as much as I pay in the U.S. How much do you pay in the U.S.? Like a hundred bucks a month? Yeah, maybe a hundred bucks a month.
Speaker: I would pay $300 a month to not worry about trash. You're saying you're going to put everything in one and then you're paying someone to go through your bags. and Whatever they decide to do with it after the fact. um Yeah, exactly. They handle the disposal.
Speaker: It's just like America. We have a giant recycle bin where everything goes. We assume they go through it, right? But we don't know. Okay. So number two, trash. or Sorry, number one, trash. Joey, you're up for number two.
Speaker: Okay. Number two So my one for number two is Okay, something only Akiya buyers will understand is one of your biggest battles is going to be temperature regulation.
Speaker: So you are going to find you're going to need an AC in the winter. You're going to need that split unit heater in the summer. You're going to start thinking, okay, I got to insulate these walls. You're going to start thinking, okay, should i double pane the glass here?
Speaker: Taki and I just recently had someone come look at our attic to see if we could insulate in the Thomas city. So I feel like something that you only really understand after you buy one of these older properties is that temperature regulation is like a big problem you're going to have to figure out.
Speaker: 100,000% agree. I feel like I've been the coldest and the hottest I've been, i think these past two years have been in Japan ah for both of those apexes and lows. um Yeah, and it's not so straightforward. So we did try to find someone like,
Speaker: It's going to be, we were told it's going difficult to insulate our attic. And so we were asking this contractor we were speaking to, don't they and don't they have like those spray foam companies, as they drill a hole in through the outside, just fill the whole thing with spray foam. And he's never heard of it, but he's going to ask around. So just know that you know they don't have the same insulation techniques potentially.
Speaker: Okay. I'm going with number three. I think... Going from a dreamer to a buyer of Anakia is there's always going to be like a, and your property is never going to be done.
Speaker: I think you just have such limited time to be there and like furnish and do everything you want. And you'll find, especially as a foreigner, you're, you know, you're going back and forth. You're traveling a lot. Like,
Speaker: i don't think our betbo place will ever be done i don't think our tama place will ever be done and maybe that's because we bought at a lower price point but there's always like this like ideal like oh we're going to get it to this point and i don't know if we're ever going to hit that because there's just problems that come up or things we want to improve like we improved our entire bottom floor betbo like damn it, we should redone our kitchen at the same time. And we're starting to see those like you know ah inconsistencies that we're like, okay, let's just flatten everything out. And the the I guess the ceiling keeps getting higher and higher. So I don't know how to phrase it, but it's like emotionally, you're never going to have it in a place, I believe, unless you live there full time. So maybe Eric, you might get there.
Speaker: and we' Probably not. I'm always in a state of updating. so yeah Do you feel that way? about yeah your properties and your rental properties in Hawaii, though? Like, you feel like they will just never be done either?
Speaker: No, i I think I i like really maxed it. What's the difference then? I believe when I lived there in Hawaii, I was pushing really, really hard. And like, I think you get the ship to a certain point and you let it run free. So I'd say I worked like really, really hard on my Hawaii place for like two months straight.
Speaker: And then I was living there, leveling it up over time. Um, that I just don't think I'd personally, or we personally will be on the ground in that one property long enough to get it to that. Yeah. Expert level.
Speaker: I think that's the the difference there is that we're not spending enough time on the ground at these properties. So, okay. One more counterpoint. We had uh, one of our clients, we have a podcast with him, Nin.
Speaker: He outsourced the kind of the renovation design to interior decorator. I'm not sure how much renovation was included, but definitely the interior decoration. Do you think that is a viable way. If someone's like, what? It's never going to feel done. Do you think just unfortunately paying more money, but getting it done?
Speaker: It's actually like an emotional difference to where I think he's looking at it as an investment Airbnb that he's not going to live in, where I think we've gone too far with our BatBoo spot that we're like, oh, we want to live there also.
Speaker: So I think if we were to detach that and be like, okay, this is an Airbnb mechanism at this certain quality threshold, let's run it. And maybe that's like a, don't perfectionist mindset.
Speaker: But what you think, Eric? Do you guys leave some of your personal stuff at BetPoo? Oh yeah. that's part of it, I think too. So like I wanted to originally like, oh yeah, I'd love to have like random people stay at my place. And then I'm like, I got my own shit here.
Speaker: Nah, they can stay at my second place. You know, like, and We don't have too much stuff. Yeah. so it's But it's like you have a closet like full of your clothes.
Speaker: I have one suitcase. Oh, I saw. We have a whole bunch of tools, but. Yeah. Maybe it's just too personal, though. You've made it for you. So it just feels intrusive if you have people that you don't know stay there.
Speaker: Yeah, I think we're caught. I'm personally, like I think, feeling caught between where I don't feel like the Airbnb as is as at the quality. Like, Beppu's not at the quality that I would want it to be at for an Airbnb. I think with Hawaii, like I put, tried really, really hard that it is designed to be very good and like lasts a long time where Beppu, I think it's just going to be...
Speaker: problem after problem because the bones, we don't know the bones well enough. It's project house. Yeah. But it's been fun. No regrets. Yeah, totally.
Speaker: Okay. We're going back around the horn here. Eric, number four. Yeah. I would say... and Things Akiya or just people that live maybe in Inaka side of Akiya in Japan.
Speaker: So the countryside of Japan would be locks don't matter. Locks, like door locks. Door locks do not matter. Car locks do not matter. Garage locks do not matter.
Speaker: i don't i don't see a purpose for them. The mailman, when he comes, he opens up my door and throws the mail in. He opens your door. Right? He opens your door? Yeah. Yeah. He's left mail right on my step. and i like Or people that know me have come in and left stuff inside. People have done that in Beppo, too.
Speaker: They open your door and they're like, Konichiwa. You know, so. Yeah. There's no purpose for locks. And honestly, if you have your door locked, I think you'll miss out on visitors or mail because they'll go up and they'll be like, i must not be home. It's locked, you know? So yeah. And well, honestly, so the safety level of Japan, right?
Speaker: I don't lock. I don't lock anything, and I don't want to. All right. Party in Eric's house. Unlocked right now, guys. Go for it. probably is.
Speaker: That's actually really interesting because I notice in Beppu, they'll do that sometimes. And I think thinking back to when I was in high school in Shizuoka, I think neighbors did that too. They just kind of – they open up the little sliding genkan door a little bit. Konnichiwa.
Speaker: And it reminds me, Take, so in Beppu, Take and I are members of a community-only hot spring onsen. yeah, you guys are master bathers. Jisouji Onsen.
Speaker: There's a man, Itai-san, who runs the Jisouji Onsen, and we have to pay him in cash each month in a specific envelope. He was like, you cannot lose this envelope. You have to pay me with this envelope.
Speaker: Anyways, I'll go there, but it it always feels weird. So I'll ring the doorbell and just kind of wait outside. But I feel like maybe i should just open up his door and say Konnichiwa. I don't know. Both probably feel a little bit weird, but um it feels yeah like to of maybe a little too Western, the like the ping pong and then just waiting. I'm not sure. It's always like a strange time for me. I feel like when I'm sit maybe he's just an intimidating guy. So no matter what what I do, it's going to feel strange.
Speaker: He's, uh, he's older. I take it older. Yeah. 50s. I think he's maybe 60s. Japanese, uh, elderly are, can be intimidating because you don't want to, uh, just disrupt their lifestyle.
Speaker: The first time I went to over there, his son lives at home. His son is actually about the same age as me. And i was like, Oh, Hey, what's that? His son's got a, like a motorcycle too. And I was like, Oh, Hey, what's up, man? Like, uh,
Speaker: you know, we, we should be friends. Like let's hang out. And then it tie son, the dad was like, ha ha ha. Hey son, you want to be friends with a guy? Jin. I like, is that what he said?
Speaker: Yeah. Something like that. like No way. That's crazy. All right. So, okay. Safety. I can't. Yeah. I agree with Eric. Like, I don't think Joey is more, I don't think I ever lock anything. Joey locks stuff.
Speaker: I think he's better about that. Um, that's the locker. She'll lock stuff at night. And that was, It's weird. weird If you are thinking about buying Nokia, just a note on this, like door locks are different.
Speaker: So if you bring over like a E code lock, we brought over like a slogging code, which is like the number pad deadbolt lock. does right that over yeah We just like, we wanted to put a door with it. Cause I have the slog system for all my Airbnbs on this app.
Speaker: I know Eric, this is not it's a it' so different door size. as a contractor That is laughable, but yeah, yeah I can see how every and somebody else could make that mistake. Yep. Yep. How actually on that note, like how do we get that installed Eric?
Speaker: Is this a custom door we need to make for our time and place or something? Yeah. Dammit. There's no, can we buy a Western door somewhere in? think we have to go with a Japanese.
Speaker: they There are Japanese companies that make these, their websites are just very kind of difficult to navigate, but they do make like keypad locks in Japan. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen very rarely, but I've seen like a couple.
Speaker: All right. Number five, Jerry. What's something? all right. Before we do that, just wanted to mention to all the listeners, Taki and I run the Acumart Direct purchasing program. If you are at all interested in following along this journey that Eric, Taki, and I have gone down and purchasing real estate in Japan, we can help you buy and we can help you buy fully remotely as well.
Speaker: We purchased maybe four out of six of our properties remotely. So just know this is this whole journey is completely possible.
Speaker: Great job, Jerry, with the ah with the ad there. Okay, now on to number five. What is something you've learned or what is one thing Akihabara will understand? Okay.
Speaker: Something i get buyers only acu occupiers will understand. This one is a little bit history lesson E. So I think the main thing that I've come to realize after being an Aki buyer is that these homes from the sixties and seventies were cheap construction. They were cheap construction at the time and they are continue to be cheap construction.
Speaker: I think Japan, You know, for a lot of things, electronics and craftsmanship, people think of Japan as having very high quality for most items that you would purchase or services you would get done. And predominantly i agree that's true.
Speaker: And maybe perhaps I don't own a Kominka, one of the traditional style Japanese homes, but I believe those probably ah embody that same type of Japanese craftsmanship where everything is rock solid and well built.
Speaker: But the homes that Taka and I have purchased, and maybe you too, Eric, were built in the 60s and 70s during Japan's economic boom. And I came to sort of realize this when we were in discussion with Sekisui Homes. So Sekisui Chemical, Haim, Sekisui Haim Home, sorry, it's difficult to say that company's name. But anyways, they were a massive home builder during this boom and they started building these semi prefabricated homes to um help Japan's growing urbanization and a growing population.
Speaker: during those boom years. And the goal was to build a lot of housing quickly. And a lot of the homes on the market that are on the cheaper end, the ones that me and Take and Eric have purchased, they're sitting on rock foundations, like in the sense like when we tore up the floor, it's not a concrete slab down there. It's a literal rock that kind of pushed in the center of a dirt pad. And then there's some support beams sitting right on top of them. And I feel like there's many other places during the journey with Sato-san where we saw more or less like, oh, like for example, the, um, the sub floor on the second floor, it's very, it it was two layers of eighth inch plywood just on top of each other with quite wide gaps in between.
Speaker: And I just believe that a lot of this was just cost saving measures. Like in the, another example is where they put, I don't even know what that's called, but in a lot of tatami rooms, there's like a little kind of step up where maybe they put a shrine or something.
Speaker: kind of ornamental space in the homes. I can't remember what they're called. but Like next to the Butsudon? Yeah, like next to the Butsudon. That's not a floor you can stand on. And like underneath our staircase in Tama, again, that's not a floor you can stand on. These are like, it's it's like almost like a veneer. It's like eighth-inch plywood, it's and there's no supports underneath. So what I'm trying to say is,
Speaker: I feel like the homes that most people are seeing that are very affordable right now, don't expect them to be that Japanese craftsmanship. These are coming from a different era of Japan, the boom year, the economic boom years of Japan, where it was rapid growth and rapid urbanization and trying to build houses.
Speaker: Eric, do you have any thoughts? Oh, yeah. Mine's super old. So my house was from Meiji era. So it's like 150 or so years old. Yeah, the Showa era sort of right. You know, 70s is where I'm talking about. That's where it gets. Yeah, I've seen it. Jay's was like that from Showa era. And when I went in it, I was like,
Speaker: yo, you should tear this thing down. Um,
Speaker: I was just like, yo, dude, I would, I would abandon ship. for real Yeah. ah I it's mean, to me, I was like, this is more work than it's worth, you know?
Speaker: Um, yeah, but my house has different. It's all, I didn't know yours was meiji. That's pretty cool. Actually. It is. Yeah. I think that it was a surprise to me as well.
Speaker: Cause I, it but it it's been updated along the way. Is it Taisho era or Meiji? Taisho was the one right before Showa and then before Taisho. Meiji's like 1888. I'm 1886 or something like that.
Speaker: Whoa. Okay. ah But they updated yours a lot, right? Yeah, my house has been updated within the same family the entire way and it's been well kept. And so that's what I was looking for, right? Something that was just well loved because then that means you have like the old,
Speaker: good bones, but you've got modern electrical running through the house and stuff. So, yeah. I think that's a counterpoint to Joey's kind of a little bit like, although, I agree with Joey. Like I was surprised by the build quality. Once you start like tearing stuff down, you're like, wait a second. This just goes straight.
Speaker: This is right on top of a patch of dirt. But on the flip side, Eric, as you mentioned, like the families take a really good care of these places. like I would assume if you were take the same subset of the house and bring in America, it'd be like much more hurting than I think some of the ones we see in Japan. like A lot of these families do take good care, even though it's a really thin plywood floor. you know It's still pretty good condition, considering it's like 50 years old.
Speaker: That's very true. I agree with that too. I think the only drawback is like that. If you find that Showa era stuff, whether it's been updated or not.
Speaker: So like if it hasn't been updated, you are met with ah you know the orange yellow toilet or like weird color bathrooms and stuff like that. And it's tough because now you're you get to update it and you might be in for a surprise.
Speaker: Right. Just flashbacks to using our squatty body toilets for three months. No way. You didn't do it that long? Maybe two months or i don't know. I feel like we use it.
Speaker: Joe used it definitely longer than. I had a standard toilet and I still renoed the room like week one. That was tough. I mean, standard toilet is definitely way better, but I don't like truly mind the squatty potty. but Clearly you don't mind it.
Speaker: and We found out you can get a conversion really easily on Amazon where it's like, but makes it so yeah, like we should have just done that. I think early on, but um all right, I'm going next. Number six. And this is something I wouldn't expect. I started getting, so we didn't have a kitchen ah most of the time. So we, Joey and I ate out a lot.
Speaker: And I felt like we kind of got tired of eating Japanese food or it made me feel unhealthy. I think going out and getting, let's say, heavy ramen or tonkatsu every day, like it really does build up.
Speaker: And like, I think two weeks in kind of just like felt like shit. We weren't exercising. We weren't eating healthy. Something I really didn't expect. And now I think now that we're six Akias deep, I'm always like,
Speaker: Joey, we got to trade health wealth for health a little bit. We got to make these trips more active. We got to start cooking more because it's just like I never would have thought like i I am tired of eating out ramen after some amount of time because your body just doesn't doesn't feel great.
Speaker: Thoughts, guys? Yeah, I find that I start looking for like Every time I'm in Beppu, because when I'm in Beppu for like two, three weeks, I'm like, there's got to be like a chopped salad place here somewhere kind of kind of feeling.
Speaker: I do get tired of the ah Japanese food or there's like Thai place that I like there too. But I'm looking for something that's not tonkatsu, I feel like, or ramen. Tonkatsu ramen is so good in Beppu though.
Speaker: Yeah. um I'm always looking for to expand like our options. So we have something for everything. I kind of joke with Beth. We need to find the absolute best Oumu Rice place in our area.
Speaker: Okay, we've done that. Now we've got to find the absolute best ramen shop. Okay, we've done that. And then we we go through the list. And so we we can say we know the absolute best of any type of cuisine you want.
Speaker: Do you get tired of Japanese? I do... i do find that Japanese flavors, I'm not going to limited, but there's like almost like a fixed set of Japanese flavors. And I find that I end up wanting something outside of that.
Speaker: We have a really good burger place. So, and you like got to reset your palate. damn We go to this, uh, we go to a hamburger place and I feel like, um, we have a really good, uh, Italian pasta place.
Speaker: So i and we have an Indian place. so I feel like that allows us to reset. Like if you get tired of the the Asian ah flavor, right? Japanese flavor, everything, everything's but always brown gravy, right?
Speaker: In Japan. Then you go reset with one of those like other ethnic foods. Shout out Japanese Indian food. i actually really like it. I like it. It's very sweet.
Speaker: Like there's sugar or something in the naan. There's sugar in the curry. Like it's a sweet take on Indian food, but like, i don't know. I really like it. And not spicy. Japanese people cannot take spicy. And like I go to Japan and get hot and I come back here and get medium and just get wrecked. Like what kind of Indian places are you going to? Come over to my place. I'm over in, I don't know.
Speaker: Niigata's got the spice, is what you're saying? I've got ah really good friends at gangnja a Ganji Sugawara Indian restaurant near me.
Speaker: and They're like Nepalese owners, but they're super chill. and they um Shout out to them because they Beth is an Umeshu fan, plum wine. And they have these big bottles because it's a restaurant.
Speaker: And so her favorite ones, like we go to liquor stores everywhere looking for top quality plum wine. And she can't find it. like She goes there to the Indian restaurant. They have the best. So I make friends with them. And I'm like, hey, can you get me that? Can I buy a bottle from you guys?
Speaker: And they're like, yeah, no problem. Come back like in a few days. We'll order one in. We'll have it for you. I one 2 000 yen i'm like for the giant delicious bottle and then we go back to our next trip and we're like hey can we get some more of these like we want to bring back to the u.s yeah cool three bottles three giant bottles 6 000 yen so it's cheaper than a liquor store and better damn okay we're coming up we're coming up to me i'll show you guys some good food Big preach to all the Indian restaurants in Japan. Do you guys ever feel like when I go to an Indian restaurant in Japan and they're doing all the like the oh what is it? a multi nashi like the Japanese style like manners and like that kind of stuff I'm always like you can you can chill with me, bro. Kind of yeah like switch to English. like and i was like yeah you my shoulders a little bit Yeah, I was like, it's it's cool. Like, yeah, you can relax with me. yeah
Speaker: Yeah. I always try to give that vibe off. I don't know if they receive it or if they know that you're trying to tell them that. One last point actually on the food, I think in balancing that that wealth for health, Joey and I had a good routine where we subscribed to a gym at one point where we were doing laundry downstairs. We're going to the gym, then we hit the onsen and then we're eating. I think that was like the cycle week.
Speaker: I think I felt best in Japan and would recommend anyone buying in Japan to think about like, what am I going to do for exercise? Yeah. I think that's a missing component we've been feeling.
Speaker: Anytime fitness. Very hard to cancel your contract, but if you're in the system, I think you can go to any gym on the planet, right? Yep. All right. That was number six. I'm gonna throw a bonus round. Throwing it back to you, Eric. Number seven, what Accio buyers know?
Speaker: And nor when we only, only Akio buyers know, this is one that I kind of warn people about beforehand. Cause like I have a buddy right now trying to buy in or he's in the process of buying in Joetsu and he's like, oh, when I get there, I'll just do this. And i was like, oh, how are you gonna, how you gonna move that trash or your Renault or the old toilet?
Speaker: Right. was like, you don't have a car. What you to Take your old toilet, put it in a bag and hop on the train and then take it to the disposal place. So like ah something that you'll know is if you want to have a vehicle to um just handle your daily errands, go get groceries. You know, yes, public transportation is is great, but there's some places on the island where you want a car.
Speaker: Agreed. car Car life is the best. You just need an international driver's license from AAA and you can drive and it's not that scary. Everyone's like, i don't know how to drive on the other side of the road. Like you'll get used to it in like couple minutes.
Speaker: Yeah, it's just parking lots is where you'll get a little turned around, I think. So reversing back into a parking spots. Is that the move? Or like when you're leaving a parking lot, like ah what lane you you need to be in.
Speaker: So yeah. Yeah. Okay. Joey, I'm giving you the final number eight. I copped it. I'm a copping out. not going for number nine final and best point, Joey. Final best point. I mean, I think my best point was actually the second one is that, like I said, cheaper construction than you're going to expect. It's not that Japanese craftsmanship.
Speaker: But I'm trying to think of something like that's not just Japan. Like, i think there's two ways to answer this question. One is, Hey, what do only people who have lived in Japan know versus, Hey, what do only people who have actually purchased an Akiya? No. And so I'm going to go with, um so I'm trying to do more of the second style. That's not Japan specific, but more Akiya buyer specific. And I think one off the top my head, this isn't my best point, but I'm on the spot here. So the one that comes to the top of my head is Amazon and deliveries are more difficult than you expect.
Speaker: First off, me and Tague tried to send some magazines to our bedroom house before we officially got there to test out whether Amazon would work. And there were several problems that prevented us from getting deliveries.
Speaker: One, like first off the bat, it's difficult for amazon.com to accept your American credit card. It like accepts it, but it randomly flakes out and says like, Hey, payment didn't go through payment didn't go through.
Speaker: And it's like one of those very frustrating things where you try it a million times, the exact same thing. And on the millionth time, like it magically works. I don't know why. And then it'll go back to not working. So just know that's one of the issues we ran into.
Speaker: Second one is we had the address wrong. So some properties are Milko property is actually, sorry, the betboot property has two official addresses. One is the land parcel address. And then the second one is the mailing address.
Speaker: And at the time, we didn't understand this and we just we were trying to use the land parcel address as the address we were putting in Amazon. That didn't work and nothing was getting sent to our house.
Speaker: that was the first problem we had to solve was figure out that. I've heard a lot of rural properties. For example, our Miyoko property only uses the land parcel address. It does not have a separate mailing address.
Speaker: And Tama City House, I'm guessing it probably has two or maybe they're the same. Just know there's some complications and always make sure You ask your real estate agent, is this the mailing address that you can send stuff to?
Speaker: The funnier issue was when we finally did get the address correct, the delivery, the Amazon delivery person or mailman would not leave the packages there because it looked like no one was living there. It wasn't Akiya. It had been abandoned for however, 1.5 years. They're like, wait, there bro this has to be, they're like, this has to be wrong because there's no, so that that was the third problem we ran into.
Speaker: fourth problem we run into is even now that it looks more lived in, they weren't leaving the packages. They don't want to leave packages unattended. It's less like America, even even though I think Amazon package theft is very rare. Yeah, maybe leave your door unlocked is the answer here.
Speaker: They wouldn't leave the packages unattended. So we had to make a sign. Actually, Taki wrote the sign. One of the rare times I've seen him write kanji and shirikana, but and we still the sign. It's frames now in the Beppu house.
Speaker: Take hand wrote a sign on Damboru, a cardboard in a Sharpie saying, hey, please leave packages unattended here. It's okay. And even then, with all these things figured out, I still feel like one in 10 times the package doesn't get delivered.
Speaker: Hey, we got to nine in 10, though, that they are getting delivered. Pretty good. Pretty good. agree. Yeah. Oh, do you want a bonus nine? I just thought of one.
Speaker: Okay. Before before go bo bonus nine, Amazon, if you are buying an Aki, don't expect to like time everything correctly with the Amazon. Like, oh, I'm going to order all these Amazon things and it's going to arrive there perfectly on time.
Speaker: It will not, as I think the big moral of the story with Joey's point here and and nothing delivery goes exactly as planned. So, right, Eric, onto you. heard a preview. Number nine bonus. Weeds, plants, your overgrowth of your yard and koi fish, dude. Are they still alive?
Speaker: My fish did not to not make it. anyway They were gifted. so like how in that um and they were I think they were in Medaca. were like river fish. and Then I had some crawfish too. but I won't get into that because I'm just like a murderer of fish. so yeah so We had our gardener clear all our weeds like maybe a month before we got there this last trip.
Speaker: And when we got there, my backyard was over my waist height. ah it was like it was Like it was never done. Jungle. So yeah, just be ready to put down some bosu shito.
Speaker: Is that what you call it? Yeah, that's the hot we weed barrier fabric. The black weed barrier fabric. Bosu shito. so That's my bonus.
Speaker: All right. and Cool. So that is nine things only Akia buyers will know. Joey, I do agree with you. a couple of those are just Japan-related things, but I think a lot of our our listeners are kind of like us who are going into this.
Speaker: We've learned a lot. It has not been easy. As Joey mentioned, we do have our Akia Mart direct purchasing program. We also have a website, www.akia-mart.com, where we have over what, Joey? million listings at this point?
Speaker: Yeah, like 1.5 million live on the site. um Take, but big news. We just completed our merch store. Oh, let's go.
Speaker: see Eric wearing the t-shirt merch right now. yeah yeah we The merch store is going live on Tuesday in this next newsletter. We have two designs. We have our Kappa design, which is our first pilot shirt, and we do have our next limited edition coin laundry t-shirt. Coin laundry. I love it, by the way. By the way, i I received it not too long ago, and the cotton, soft but durable, print, unique. I wore it to a car show. I got a lot of compliments, so...
Speaker: Kudos to the shirt. If you want to impress the ah the car guys, you know the shirt to get. help we'll We'll leave a link in the show notes on the merch store. Again, we're only going to print maybe close to 100 of these.
Speaker: i think we want to keep printing more designs. So limited edition, get while they're hot. I've literally been wearing it this shirt like almost every day. And like Gaga's like, what you don't you have any other non-Aki-weared shirts at this point?
Speaker: Yeah. But all right, boys, good episode. And we look forward to chatting with you guys 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.
Speaker: That's A-K-I-Y-A-M-A-R-T.com to find your dream home in Japan. If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at akiamart.com.
Speaker: 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.
