Transcript
Speaker: Biggie, biggie, biggie, can't you see? Welcome back to the Buying a House in Japan podcast. Today, Joey and I are recording live from the lab in Tama Base Camp. We have a ton of gear. We're sitting at a nice table. You got, Joey. Actually, this Nitori table turned out quite well. Yep. Nitori delivery and actually big news on getting delivery items in Japan.
Speaker: we were
Speaker: news We were able to get a Japanese phone number, a soft bank number. Yeah, we will talk about that in a little bit, but there is a way to do it. And you pick up all the necessary stuff at either Narita airport or Haneda when you land. Yep. We're going to do a deer diary series. A lot, a lot to catch up. A lot of random thoughts. It's great to be back in Tokyo. This house is, I was, I was a little salty in the beginning. We, we landed. I landed in Joey landed in Haneda. We met up.
Speaker: in Nipodi station and met up with Dio, our Akiemart direct agent. And we took a two hour cab. That was like, traffic brutal at the entire time. Joe, you're like, just bought in man. Like should have taken 50 minutes. Yeah. I'm saying New York man. You're trying to like, just go. I mean, I learned everything about driving when my parents lived in Italy. But yeah, you know, that kind of thing is like, there's a merge up ahead and there's one lane that's empty, but everybody's in the lane emerge.
Speaker: You do the jerk move where you go down the empty lane and then force your way in and the video end that's what I thought. That's Japan, you got the lineup buddy. Anyways, today we'll give a couple quick updates on our properties. I think those things are moving in the right direction, I would say. So starting off, we're at Tama Base Camp again, 40 minutes west of central Tokyo. Took us a really long time on the cab, but it was only a hundred dollars from Nippori station, which is pretty good.
Speaker: like How much is a cab in New York? One man, 5 ,000 yen, right? What's a cab in New York, like 30 minutes or something an hour? I took a cab from Williamsburg to JFK. It was about 50 minutes an hour. Yeah, it was $130. Okay. So Japan's still affordable. I was a little salty again that our house was so far away, but now that I'm here, I'm very, very appreciative. Our place is huge.
Speaker: It's very clean. Joey, you did a great job. yeah You got some good art. I'm looking at this like huge canvas Joey stretched and made a frame for. Maybe we'll use that as a photo, but good mirrors. Great job, Joey. Thanks.
Speaker: We're almost ready to rent out this place. I'd say we just assembled a nice working desk. I have the same exact desk set up in every place I met. So very comfortable. It's funny. I see the desk he's talking about. it It's the exact same desk in several places where it lives. i'm ah I'm an athlete. I'm an athlete worker. You got to have the right equipment and have your home station. But anyways, yeah, I think we're almost ready to rent this place out. I'd say a couple small touches. Nice job. Jerry bill also built some like concrete.
Speaker: side tables for our beds look really look really good. The air conditioning is working well. so Yeah, it's comfortable here. Oh, big update. I don't know if we talked about this new car license plate.
Speaker: Did we talk about that yet? I thought it was a thumbnail of a podcast that had seven seven seven in it, but oh spoiler alert. If not, we got the license plate seven seven seven on our white minivans who watch our world. So Tama base camps grade. We're here this week for meetings. Unfortunately I had to cut my month trip short, Jerry, and we truncated a little bit just to punch out a couple of things here, but excited to be here. What do we got on the plate today, Joey? That's kind of reverse order it.
Speaker: Well, why don't you talk about Sekisui? Because I've actually had no yeah okay no hand in this. well We're talking to a renovation company, Sekisui House. we We're not sure where that'll go, but one of our big things is as we help people through the buying process, the next question is like, how do we renovate the house? So that's something we're in Tokyo right now. Just trying to figure out like how do we help people renovate these akiyas? Because it's really damn hard. as we'll We'll talk about our bamboo place in a little bit. but Not easy. and We have a podcast coming out with Kun and actually one of the architects who talks about renovation too. So big problem, don't know how we're going to solve it, but it is, I think top of mind with our customers.
Speaker: Yeah, one of the, I think, issues with Sekisui House is that you know theyre they are a very big company in Japan. And we've heard rumors that they only like to work with Sekisui. The Sekisui House has been alarmed for a long time. So, you know, there were Sekisui houses built in the 1950s, 60s, whatever. And in terms of renovation, they only renovate a Sekisui houses and they only build Sekisui houses. So it might be a stretch to kind to convince them to help foreigners renovate any random house that they purchased in Japan, but that hopefully we'll get a discussion going today. Yep. And after that, we are gunning it to our new deal. We found an off -market deal in Myoko ski country.
Speaker: um Yoshi, our Akiemart direct agent kind of reached out to us and said, Hey, any interest in Myoko? This originally was priced, I think at like 20 ,000 US dollars, Joey, or maybe 50, I'd have been closer to 10 ,000, but we channeled our inner Keaton, went with the whole him, you know, and and this is true. Like me and my fiance want a ski house. We want to be out, ah spend some time here and low balled an offer. We low balled, I think like.
Speaker: much um How much? How'd you do 800 ,000, which translates to like $5 ,000. And I was like, Oh, that's, that's spicy. And I was like, Yoshi, hey I don't want to offend you, but just, just, this is what I can afford. And it's truthful. You know, we don't have a lot of capital right now. So to our surprise, he came back maybe like a couple of days later and said, the seller has agreed to 500 ,000, which is $3 ,500. So Air horns to that one. we might We're gonna but driving up today. It's about a four hour drive from Tokyo. We got our credit card, our ETC card, so we're we're all ready for the road. Joey, tell us about the property a little bit.
Speaker: Yeah, I think the main, it sounds like there's two reasons why Yoshi was able to, I think it was initially list. So it's off market. So it wasn't listed anywhere, but I think he initially approached us with the property. I think I thought it was 1 .5 million. It was closer to 2 million. Yen and which is you know 1 .5 million that's like $10 ,000 and it was like $15 ,000 2 million. Yeah. Anyways, he initially approached us with that two reasons why I think that he came back and he was like hey the seller agreed to 500 ,000 yen asking price is that first off I think there's like the bank repossessed this house or something I don't understand the specifics and we talked to Yoshi about it yesterday and
Speaker: He didn't fully understand the specifics either, or maybe he had difficulty communicating that to us. But long story short, there's some lawyer that's in charge of selling this house on behalf of the owner. And I think that the lawyer is just trying to get rid of it. Something about the house being repossessed. And the second reason, which might be the bigger reason is that it is right next to a graveyard cemetery and potentially even the border, like the boundaries of the house, a little bit vague. Maybe there's a grave on the property. Maybe not, but very unlucky on, you know, not good.
Speaker: for a lot of Japanese buyers, they just won't consider this property at all. So I think those two reasons combined is why the lawyer in charge of selling the property, he just wants to get rid of it. Yeah. The places, so Myoko just for context, we've done about 300 consultations this year so far. And I think Myoko Nagano Niigata kind of area, this is very, very well known for it's good snow. I think Myoko is really well known for his backcountry skiing. I met someone out in Palo Alto who's Loves Miyoko and was like, wow, you found this deal. And we're not... I think the grave graveyard next to it is is ah is like a little bit of a yellow flag, but we could definitely get the exorcism people to come by and and bless the place. We talked to Eric recently, he was doing that. So there's also a shrine right next to the graveyard, which we didn't mention. But this house looks pretty good. We have some photos on the inside, so we will be potentially buying it with everything in it. we're Yeah, this would be the first property with a bunch of stuff in it.
Speaker: Yeah. So we're going to go in it tomorrow. Not sure. We should wear a mask. I don't know. Yoshi doesn't know how long the person hasn't lived there. It seems like it's a 1970s, 1980s kind of looking building. There's no key for the front door. We have to go in like the side or something. Yeah. And we reached out actually to a guy on Instagram, Matt Guy. We're going to be talking to him. He bought a property of Miyoko, I think for $6 ,000. He's like pretty big influencer. So looking forward to get getting tips from him, but.
Speaker: I think this is we're scoring on this honestly. it's a All signs seem to be pointing in that direction. like A lot of people we've talked to seem to have been watching the market in Myoko for a while and they're all like, how did you get this deal? yeah you know One thing we're here in Japan is to also try to figure out how do we channel some of these off market deals? That's the question we've asked to a lot of agents. We don't quite know, but I think just being in the game and I say we give this advice to a lot of people.
Speaker: Your first property you buy in Japan, especially as a foreigner remotely, isn't going to be a smash out of the park A plus. It's realistically probably going to be a B, B minus kind of deal, but it it gets you in the game. And I think had we not bought Jisouji Lux, our place down in Beppu, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be here. Speaking of off market deals, Yoshi approached us with one in Mie prefecture, Issei, pretty famous, um, area of Japan. It's not on a beach, but it's right on the water. I think it was 150 ,000 US. s Yeah, we can send photos. Hit us up if you're interested. It's ah definitely out of our budget. But going back to the Myoko deal, I think we're going to buy it. We don't have the capital renovated. We talked to Yoshi about like, how do we get the stuff out? And he was like, you could probably hire a company for two to three thousand dollars, which is the price of the property to get everything out. But we do think that this land is valuable. It's about 10 minutes away from most of the main ski resorts in Myoko.
Speaker: very good location minus the graveyard, but f it dude we got a 777 license plate. We can get the place blessed, quite bullish and excited to maybe land this property. What's going on with Key to Kyushu? Okay. So as you some of you guys have been following, we are in the process of buying another $3 ,500 property in Key to Kyushu. We call it 20 for now, but as you may have known, we have been working with this guy Keaton.
Speaker: Unfortunately, Keaton is sick and has to drop out of this deal. So we wish him the best, but also honestly, a little bit worried. We're closing on the property, I think tomorrow for us to send the money over. And I think we're definitely going to get this property, but we are going to be kind of left hanging a little bit. He he did talk to the renovation company, so I think we're set there. and But renting the property,
Speaker: Yeah, the deal, you know, the, yeah, I mean, everyone we talk, I talked to in, in real life thought we were getting scammed here. The deal was, you know, we paid Keaton some money and in return, he was going to set up the, you know, figure out the renovation for us, which he did and also figure out the property management of it. So he would be talking to a guarantor company for us that would find tenants and get the tenants in there. But I don't think that's going to happen anymore given that he needs to do his own thing for a bit for his own health. And so yeah, we're left.
Speaker: on our own to figure that out a little bit. Maybe the real estate agent we're working with, Nakano -san, can help us out there. But, you know, maybe half, I don't think it was a scam. I think it was just unfortunate. Bad timing. Bad timing. But yeah, we are left and holding the bag a little bit. Yeah. So going to give benefit about wishing the best to Keaton. But luckily I do think we are armed with the right tools to make this, push this over the finish line. So we are going to be doing a quick drive down, not a quick drive, pretty long drive down to Gita Kyushu. We're going to check out the property next week. We're going to probably grab some beers with Nakano -san just to... He's going to be our our man at this point. Unfortunately, he has no English language, I would say. So it'll be a lot of... We've been doing okay on ChatuPT, WhatsApp, but... Gumbani Mas. Yeah, Gumbani Mas. So Gita Kyushu is still on, $3 ,500. Renovation should be costing, I think, another $2 ,000 -ish. And
Speaker: Hopefully we get intended in soon, but less than ideal. I thought Keaton was going to bring us all the way through and we're going to learn a lot. but We'll say, well at least you know we use Keaton's strategy to get this Myoko property down price. so We did learn. we did We did learn, I think, a good amount. So thank you, Keaton, Sensei. Wishing you the best. But Joey, let's talk about the spiciest property of all, our Gistoji Lux, which is what we call our Beppu property. We are also going down there a couple of days from now. What is the current situation? Spice is the most cash out of pocket property for us.
Speaker: um Just for those listening what we're about like 80 ,000 into it at this point around there. Yeah. 60 ,000, 80 ,000. I think close to 80 ,000. Okay. Yeah. So some drama has soon happened recently. So we're very close to the end. Um, renovation should be finished. We saw a lot of cool photos. It looks really good. The Arima Onsen style flooring and wallpaper. We basically copied this really nice hotel we stayed at near Kobe.
Speaker: Sato -san did a great job. The three meter long table, Horikotatsu table looks great. Shower room, not so great, but we'll we'll figure that out. yeah we Anyways, to the drama. So things are looking good.
Speaker: It took about a year when we were initially promised like three months, but we're very close to the end, if not at the end. and We heard Fumi, our friend, texted us that Sato -san had been arrested. He was you know just released out of jail around the time she texted us and she said that Sato -san needs cash.
Speaker: professor wet We don't have the full story yet. Sounds like Fumi is going to tell us in person, but... Here's my understanding of what happened. Sato -san took on, he had two jobs at the same time. So he was working on our house and he was working on another client's house. He's just one guy. He's like a single guy, carpenter, no team, which I kind of think is his downfall here. And it was just more than he could do all at once. He started working with us first. And then he took on this other job. Probably he needed the money and both jobs were going slow.
Speaker: And i think at one point we talked to me about this and she talked to satasan and satasan was like yes yes i'm so ah you know i'm sorry i admit it's going very slow i will prioritize you guys and and let's get special esogi let's get yeah like special rush like let's get it done let's get this house over the finish line.
Speaker: so ah that seems like what he did and the other clients got upset or it wasn't it sounds like he didn't communicate very well with the other clients what was happening and they got him arrested somehow they sued him i'm not exactly sure they got him arrested.
Speaker: There's a little bit more drama in it because his ex -wife comes into the picture as well. So I knew that he had gotten a divorce at some point before he started working with us. And he was like, told me he was a little stressed about that. But it also seems that somehow she was able to clean out his bank accounts. I don't know ah enough about that.
Speaker: I don't know if he was arrested because of something that his ex -wife did or something that these other clients did. But anyways, Fumi said he was in jail for a little bit, got out, and came back to finish our property, and told us that he needs to be paid in cash now. Something about owing other people money he's going to file for bankruptcy.
Speaker: So he'd rather have cash so that he can support himself and live because I think he fears that if we are to deposit money into his bank account, and you know, some authority would be able to take that money from him.
Speaker: Feels pretty fishy, Joey. But I think it is what it is. Thankfully, our house is is done. I just got a text from Fumi. Actually, she's scheduling the cleaning for the 8th, so it's coming up pretty good. So house is done. We need to finish, figure out the payment. It's impossible for us to just pay him in cash. I don't think we have the withdrawal amount. or like you know So we're going to have a hard conversation. I think it's also inappropriate for us to pay. yeah this This doesn't feel legit.
Speaker: I'd say and I'd say we will have a hard conversation with him. We're going to go through the the place to do a spot check pro tip cocoon. One of the architects that we talked to releasing podcasts, he said to go through before, you know, the final walkthrough isn't going to be important. We're going to tag some things. He obviously did things I think quite well, but things will be missing. So we will keep you posted here. It, it you know, as I do want to also give Sato -san benefited out. It sounds like a tough situation, but from a business perspective, this isn't appropriate for us to pay him in cash. I think we have to figure out.
Speaker: Yeah, like how do how do we recoup you know from a tax perspective? How do we tell you know this is renovation cost, this is capital we put in when claiming that as a deduction on taxes? Is that something we need to be cognizant of? he'd Give us an invoice though, right?
Speaker: Okay. So spicy, spicy stuff. We I'm, I'm pumped though. I think that looks really good. I think it looks great. Looks really, really good. The black to Tommy looks sleek. He he did a good job. I think Sato son could benefit from like, I don't know, thinking about what he does more, a little bit more of as a business hire somebody to make these jobs go faster. Cause he did a good job. I think that's just where his skillset is lacking is, is, you know, we're running his own business.
Speaker: So high level, place is done, shower is really rough. The concrete, custom image, in retrospectory, we should have just gone with the shower unit, right? Maybe. Disagree. I think, okay. So we wanted to do like, I don't know, some sort of. Brutalist looking concrete shower, maybe a point or some green plant in there, a little bit of wood, something, something like that. But it ended up not looking like that kind of looks like someone like slapped clay on the walls or any rubbery kind of look. It could be the lighting, but let's see it in person. We'll wait till we see it in person. But I liked your idea of just slapping shower tiles in there or like, you know, keep wood. We'll, we'll figure it out when we get there. But.
Speaker: Yeah, shower is not looking great. I don't want to shower. I mean, it looks better than our old bathroom, hopefully. Our old bathroom was pretty bad though, but at least we have two functional toilets. Again, it's been a freaking journey a year. we So we got keys a year ago. I think we really have been in the renovation process for about eight months.
Speaker: sunk in a lot of money. We give this advice too. If your budget allows, instead of budgeting for renovation, maybe just buy something already done or like for the post renovation purchase price.
Speaker: Yeah. a A few other things in the works, as we mentioned earlier, Sekisui, maybe something comes with that also. Yeah. Partnering potentially with another client that we helped purchase American guy from Minnesota might be starting up a, like a renovation company in Japan as well. So English speaking could be something could come with that, which is exciting as well. So hopefully we'll have some more renovation leads for people in the future.
Speaker: All right, we have four properties in play now. So again, Tama, which is in Tokyo, which is pretty much done, Betbu, which is down in Kyushu. We have this Kita Kyushu property we're checking out. And very lastly, we have this Myoko property we're checking out in a couple hours. Joey, what are we calling the Myoko property? Are we just going to let it hit us? when we what you i think let us let it his I don't think we did the best with KK20 naming it.
Speaker: Well, we're going to read. I think we have to see the property first before we name it. Casa de Miyoko. Casa de Miyoko. Do we go in? So we're arriving at night time. Do we go look? Yoshi gave us a key. Oh, pull the J -lux. Do we rock up? We have the Knymer now. There's a graveyard. It's going to be like Luigi's Mansion, but didn't bring any sage. Maybe we do try that. That's one of our regrets that the Jisoji Lux property, we don't have any pictures or anything from the very first night scene. Well, anyways, exciting stuff. Good stuff, Joey. I'm going to outro us out. Hold on. Last thing I wanted to mention is the way to get a Japanese phone number.
Speaker: Go to mobile dot .com, M -O -B -A -L dot com. Very easy. You just buy a SIM card through them, pick it up at Narita Hamnita Airport, follow their pretty simple instructions and you can get a Japanese number. Why this is important is because every single delivery that you need in Japan, whether you're delivering from, whether you're buying from Nike dot .com or Nitori or whatever requires a Japanese phone number.
Speaker: I went to Dokomo, AU shop, you know so many different shops, and they all require Zaidu cards, so some sort of immigration status in Japan. Mobile is the only way I figured it out. So if you need a Japanese phone number, mobile dot .com. Oh, yeah. And the very last plug, there's a Japan Real Estate Summit ah conference this Saturday that we're going to be speaking at. So if you haven't bought your tickets, go ahead and and check. We'll link at it in our show notes. And other than that, Joey, I am excited for this road trip.
