Transcript
Speaker: I also felt like so much of my life was like applying to be part of someone else's system. Like you are in high school and you're applying for university. And then I was in university applying for, Grad school and then out of grad school, i'm like applying for jobs. Like you're trying to win someone else over so that you can join their system. Then starting this business, I feel like it was such a breath of fresh air. You're creating your own system in life. I don't have to prove myself to somebody else anymore. It's just really like, can I prove myself to myself? But then applying for this visa, I had those same feelings again. i was like, okay, I'm applying for someone else.
Speaker: back, baby.
Speaker: Welcome back to the buying a house in Japan podcast, the number one Akia podcast in the world. Let's go. Let's go. Recording live from Tama Base Camp. This is our, how many episodes are we on now? Like 130 or something? It's crazy.
Speaker: It's crazy. How many episodes have we filmed in here? I feel like this room, it's like the dining room at the Tama house and we're getting better each time. We got some new lights this time. I feel like each time yep this room gets better and better.
Speaker: We also got some cool swag right here. Look it look at this. Got some Patagonia. We got the entire crew. We got them embroidered St. Aki Amart. Christmas gift for the team. Got a special episode today. This has been a long time in the making, Joey.
Speaker: um Joey has obtained his visa. Yay. Bam, bam, bam. Um, Joey wanted to take today to interview you to kind of talk through some of the process. I know it's been like, it's been like a two year journey, honestly, it feels like, um, for context before we actually go into it Joey kind of like, who are we as Akiya Mart?
Speaker: Yeah. So, um, Taki and I are the founders of Akiya Mart. We've purchased six properties in Japan in the past two years and helped over 200 people do the same thing. So we can help you too.
Speaker: Totally. So along the process, we bought our first property back in 2024, I think. 2023 was our first. All right, Joey, take us back to 2023. We had just bought our house in Beppu. We ah started kind of putting the website together, started this business. like As far as like living in Japan, were you like, hey, you know this is my opportunity or what was going through your mind?
Speaker: Yeah, no, definitely was not going through my mind. So that was October, 2023. We're now March, 2026. So from the Genesis, two and a half years. So from the Genesis, I feel like of when I started reorienting my life back Japan facing, um it's been about two and a half years. So just a quick recap of kind of my life in relation to Japan. I went to two years of high school in Shizuoka and then four years university in Tokyo. And after that, I moved out of Japan.
Speaker: That was 2011. And I didn't come back to Japan until 2023 when we bought this house in Beppu. So about 13 years. And at that time, when we first bought the house in Beppu, people that know the story, the Genesis story here is that we both found ourselves unemployed around the same time. We bought the house in Beppu, saw some friction in the buying process and ended up creating this business around Beppu.
Speaker: buying properties in Japan. At that point in time, I was still thinking like, oh, maybe I can create like a sub stack newsletter similar to like what Cheap Houses Japan was doing. on his Instagram at the time and he was selling a newsletter, I thought, oh, maybe, you know, I'm a software engineer, maybe I can automate certain things and do a better job than he was doing. That's where I was at, you know, maybe I can get beer money each month. Like, my sights were set quite low, I would say. I think, you know, ultimately when we first started, and we were like, every subscriber we'd get, we'd like, relate it to how many tonkots we could buy and could we survive in Beppu or not. uh really fun time but yeah i've known joey since i guess about 10 more than that 15 years at this point um joey since then has lived i've seen him live in japan i've seen you live like maybe a little bit in europe yeah for your masters okay yeah then you lived went to new york for 10 years and you moved back to canada and like we've both of us have ah bounced around so many places like what made you kind of like start looking at japan you know maybe going back to us was option maybe going to europe was an option So I was living in the the U.S. for a long time. yeah I was in New York. Then I was like about nine months with you in Hawaii. And then I moved to Santa Fe, New Mexico after that. And kind of like my last corporate job that I had, I was working for a cryptocurrency exchange based in New York, but I was working remote from Santa Fe.
Speaker: It was a great job. And like I learned a ton, but there was something about it where it's like, all right, I don't know. Maybe there's like ah a this is the time of my life to try something new, you know, take a risk on something. And I thought it would be, you know, I feel like I'm a, I'm a builder in life. Like I love building things. I think, you know, I was building tree houses when I was little. um ah You know, I've always been building like small web applications, like throughout the time that I've been a software engineer. Like when I was in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I was learning welding. Like I love building things. And I think that That and like creating your own business was always an interesting path for me. But I think, you know, I was lacking the confidence a little bit. You know, again, I was still setting my sights really low. Like maybe I can sell a newsletter, have beer money on it. Like I would have a real job, corporate job. And then like this would be something on the side where I get like, you know, I think max, you know, oh, if i got $2,000 a month, that would be amazing. It's kind of like, you know, where I thought that this would go. I left that job in New Mexico um to look to do something different in life. And I quit my job and moved back home to Nova Scotia, Canada, where my parents were to save money. And so that was kind of me moving back home to try to figure out what's what's like the next stage in life. And I was trying to start a different business with a different friend. That was a little bit hard to sell. It was like a 3D modeling CAD software thing. And at the same time, me and you were were pushing on the Akia stuff. So I was living in Canada for though the past basically three years in Nova Scotia, where I grew up, kind of close to where I grew up. um And it was cold. It was like Canada is kind of cold. The summer is beautiful. Summer is really nice. But I think the main kind of takeaway is like I realized my parents live in like a very old house.
Speaker: And i think it's like the coldness of Canada. And like, I kind of felt like most of the year I felt cold in that house. And so during that time I started thinking about, it would be nice to live somewhere warm. And I think that was kind of like the guiding sort of like North star goal that I had in my head was like, uh, you know, living somewhere warm. And I did briefly consider, oh, maybe I like moved to Southern Italy. My parents used to live there and I really liked Southern Italy. I also have a Dutch passport.
Speaker: And I was saying, oh, the Dutch have some islands in the Caribbean. Like, oh, maybe I moved to Curacao or something like that. But then like with the business kind of growing, ah me sort of reorienting orientienting my life, Japan facing, I started realizing that, oh, Japan has some warm islands too. And I think that's kind of what started like, oh, maybe I guess like, you know, that that that is a main part of it where I was like, oh, Japan has some warm islands. It would be nice to live there too. I was also considering moving back to the US. i have a lot of friends in the US. I lived there for a long time. But I did also feel that so much of my life has been like America focused in the past, like almost 15 years of my life.
Speaker: It would be, you know, and I think America is great. I had a wonderful time in New York and you feel like you're in the center of the the world when you're in New York. But it did kind of, you know, leaving New York, going to Hawaii, going to Santa Fe, you know, reorienting my life towards Japan. i so I realized again, like, oh, there's so much more to the planet outside of America. yeah Japan has these warm islands. I'm focusing more on Japan in my life.
Speaker: Why not try to get a visa for Japan and live on one of the long other the warm islands down south in Japan? So that's kind of like where my head was at and how I first started thinking about getting the visa in Japan. It's funny. Like the first, I think, week you came to Hawaii to come live live with me, I remember you with your ex-girlfriend and like she was really expecting like...
Speaker: the super, super warm. And it was like February and January where like, I'm the exact opposite where I'm searching for cold weather. I'm like always too warm. And she was like disappointed. I can think both of you guys were like a little disappointed. Like, ah, it's like mid seventies. remember you wearing your like down jacket and stuff. Like this is the glory time, bro.
Speaker: It gets too hot in the summer. And actually, I mean, jumping ahead a little bit. So I was in Ishigaki for the past month where I'm planning to live for it. Like that's to be the location in Japan. And it was also like I was there in February. Same kind of time where it's like, you know, it's like a hot, humid island for most of the year. But that's like the perfect time where like you wake up in the morning, it's nice and cool.
Speaker: There's the cool breeze. It was yeah very similar to you know that first month in Hawaii. I think it was January that we went there. Oh, yeah. Well, congratulations on making it to Ishigaki. the there It's been a long arc, you know, going, living in mom's basement for a little bit, slowly kind of working your way up. But walk us through the visa kind of process. What what visa did you get? And like...
Speaker: Yeah. what What kind of there's like it seems like there's 10 visas in Japan at this point. How did you choose? What was the right one for you? So I got the HSP one B visa, which is a highly skilled professional vi visa one B. I don't know exactly what the one B means specifically. But I think when I first applied for the visa, there was actually four different types I think I was considering. It's the business manager visa, startup visa, um regular employee visa, and then the highly skilled professional visa. So four different visas there. And as I started go you know starting to think more seriously about applying for this visa, the business manager visa kind of got, you know, you know, RIP. Yeah. It was like a main goal of ours for a while where we even for Beppu house, we like closed off a wall to like get a separate office, which would quote unquote allow you to be a business manager visa. So there were a lot of pivots I remember, but yeah, good. That's exactly like, like all of this news is like pretty recent. Like, you know, we bought our Beppu house in October, 2023 and like we walled off a part of the house, as you said, because that could be used at to fulfill one of the requirements of the business manager visa. But the business manager your visa is like effectively dead unless you have $200,000 cash lying around here. But that's, you know, that's, that's within the past six months. So, you know, a lot has changed ah in the past, you know, 12 to six months here. So business manager visa out startup visa also out because we have an existing business here. Startup visa is if you don't have a business yet and you're coming here to start it. So that was also out because we had already ah created our our entity here in Japan beforehand. So I started down the path for just, I think it's the regular, it's called a humanities visa, I believe, which is just like, kind of feel like the standard work visa. It's what, if you see the Nepalese people working at 7-Eleven, it's the visa that they're on. yeah
Speaker: And Japan has also, has actually increased the number of those visas that they're giving out in certain sectors. So I think like manufacturing, construction, they're actually giving out a lot more of those visas. I think it was 3 million they're trying to do in 2026. There's actually a lot of visas. Um, so that's the standard humanities visa. I think most people working in Japan are on that visa and that's the one I was pursuing. I started that process and while I was going through that process, when did you start that process? Uh, April of last year. So April, 2025. And I remember thinking like, okay, that past winter, 2024, 25, was like, is, could I make this my last winter? Didn't quite happen that way, but whatever. Second to last winter. I remember you yeah, it was brutal. It was brutal.
Speaker: That was tough for you. I chose the HSP visa because there is the, in certain circumstances, there's the option to get ah PR permanent residency in, you can apply for it in 12 months. So yeah under the HSP one B visa, if you get the five year visa, uh, after 12 months, you're eligible for PR and PR. Applications take about, I think, like 18 months in Tokyo right now. So potentially in just a little over two years, you can go from nothing to permanent resident. And I started thinking about that a little bit more seriously because of the difficulties being on a work visa. Like, I feel like what we're trying to do, I'm like half employee.
Speaker: half business manager, like also I want the flexibility to kind of start up a sole proprietor business if I wanted to, like a lot of the goals that I'm trying to achieve, they don't fit in exactly one visa bucket here. You know, each of them have restrictions on what work you can actually do.
Speaker: And so permanent residency became attractive to me because I thought, okay, well, if I could just avoid all this, these visa issues with permanent residency, like, you know, kind of all these problems, all these applications for stuff goes away. So that, that was kind of the main factor for me, just like the freedom to come to Japan and like,
Speaker: do business activities in you know these different ways that I would like to do. Either way, I think that PR was attractive because we're doing lots of different business stuff, wide range. And I would just love that to like to not have to worry about, am I infringing on some sort of visa restrictions here and that kind of stuff. like It would be like as if I was in Canada trying to do business stuff. Totally.
Speaker: A lot of visas, a lot of things. i think like the TLDR is like things change year to year. Like how do the 2023 landscape was so different than the 2026 landscape now. And like, had I tried this, like had I started this process a year earlier, i probably would have gone business manager visa and would have ended up in a bad situation.
Speaker: I remember like there' so business manager Visa, they made like some cutoff when like every applicant after this is now under the new rules. 2025, What was going through your mind? I remember something. like We were thinking, like do we rush it before then? or like I know you had been working with someone.
Speaker: what what What happened there? Okay, so when the rules were announced for the business manager were already decided to go. no I don't think I was pursuing anything seriously yet. So it was kind of like, oh, it would be good, you know, eventually, maybe next year to get the business manager visa. And then they announced those rules. So it was kind of like good timing for me that was like, all right, that's a dead end.
Speaker: You know, shout out to the immigration attorney I was working with. Even the HSP visa. So that used to be that you could apply for PR. So if you're on the five-year visa, you can apply after like 12 months. If you're on the three-year HSP visa, you can apply after like, don't know, a little bit longer than 12 months. I don't remember the exact thing, but they just canceled that. So you have to be on the five-year visa. And I think even within the five-year visa category, there's certain ones that are now I would say effectively non-eligible. So business manager, there is like a business manager HSP visa, yep but you still require the $200,000 like capital to do that. So now you need to be on a five year visa to apply for PR. Okay. I think at all. Okay. And you need a certain number of points as well. And if you're on the HSP business manager, you also need the $200,000 capital. So it's a messy landscape and somehow uh, immigration attorney I was working with, I'm on the one that's like still in the, in the clear. So like, I didn't like honestly plan it that way, but I did like, toette yeah, make my intentions clear when I was working with the immigration attorney and like she picked the best one for me. yeah And you know, given the sort of crumbling landscape of PR eligibility, like I was on the the one pillar that stayed there. So yeah, I do feel lucky there given this changing landscape. Your journey over the past couple of years, you've talked to a lot of immigration people and sometimes it wasn't the right fit, right? Like how was that kind of for you? i Ultimately you found someone, but. Yeah, so I was working, so I worked with two different immigration attorneys and actually a lot of this was, so we switched um bookkeepers about ah maybe about a year ago, little less than a year ago. And we kind of went from like,
Speaker: Paying like ah you know a certain amount to increasing the amount we're paying for bookkeeping but totally worth it, like worth every penny. It costs more but worth every penny. And when I was working with the first ah immigration attorney, I kind of had that feeling where it was like I don't feel like I'm getting really the professional service here like this. I know immigration is a complicated thing. The landscape was changing. So I did look for a second immigration attorney. And I do agree with that advice again. going you know If it doesn't feel right for you, like potentially up your budget. And I do believe it'll be worth every penny. like At least two times in a row, that's been the case, both with bookkeeping for the business and then with immigration attorneys. like The level of confidence that I felt from the second immigration attorney, just like hit you know it was really reassuring. It really is like ah your results may vary from person to person because your first immigration attorney, one of our friends went through them and and successfully got there. And like, I don't know, it seems like it's such a like a, you know, you got to find that right match for who fits best with you and your budget and what you want. But it's interesting. There's such a variability. Yeah. We had a few like kind of ah complicating factors on ours, given that the, you know, the business owns some properties and we're trying to use some of those properties for certain aspects of the visa. So there was some complications there.
Speaker: All right. So let's talk about the highly specialized visa and the point system. It seemed actually pretty structured, like break it down kind of simply for listeners here. So there's a point system in Japan. I don't claim to be like ah a complete expert here because it does get the expert on some. of it Yeah. So I think the point system is technically separate from the HSP visa. Like they they exist independently. But for my purposes, they were the same thing. So I'm just going talk about it as if it's the same thing. But just know there's some nuances there. Um, the HSP visa point system, I think at a minimum you need 70 points.
Speaker: Okay. Uh, sorry, maybe it's 60. So I think there's like the, again, certain of threshold of there's certain thresholds and things change. And I think like the HSP one year might've been 60 points. The HSP three year was 70 and the HSP five year was 80 points. Uh, those numbers could be a little bit off, but basically that's the thing. Yep.
Speaker: And you get points based on certain things. You know, there's like a it's actually quite simple. And someone had built like an online calculator in English. So it is kind of interesting. Yeah. Or sorry, it is simple um to calculate the number of points you get. It's less complicated than you think. There's some interesting things there. So I would say the main things to get points is.
Speaker: Right off the bat, age. If you're young, so I think in your 20s, you will score high points. Like I'm 37. turn 38 soon. I think every kind of like chunk like yeah of age, you like drop points down, but you make it up through years of work experience. So you, it can even out a little bit. Um, what's that, what's that middle point where like, what's the optimal point? Like if you're out of college and you're working for late twenties, I would say but before you turn 30, I think is probably the optimal time. okay So, so I actually scored high. I scored 95 points, which is off the charts. Let's go baby.
Speaker: But I would say like, here's the things that worked in my favor. So age did not work in my favor, but I made up for it with years of work experience. so i feel like that may be more or less evened out. If you graduated from Japanese university, you get a whole bunch of points. So ICU, I got a whole bunch of points. I got a master's degree, so even more points. okay and Both of those schools were on the list of like Japanese government. there's like There's a lot of schools on the list. you know There's maybe 1,000 schools on the list. Jerry's going to be humble. He went to Cambridge. That's a high-scoring school, obviously, right? I was very confident Cambridge would be on the list of like a known, reputable school, but even ICU is on the list of ah of a reputable school.
Speaker: It's interesting. like it dude Do they take like a Japanese school like world ranking? i like I know Japan really looks at Cambridge highly. I looked at the the full list. There's a lot of schools on there, maybe about a thousand. It was just an alphabetical order. So I have no idea what the points associated with each one or no, same amount of points. Yeah. And you only get it for one. You can only get those points once. So it's not like I got it for both schools.
Speaker: I got it once. So I would have ICU alone. Yeah. Just ICU alone. We'll do it. Masters at any random school would have been exactly same. Yeah, exactly. Okay. Um, master's degree. And then I would say the last big one is salary. So that really seems to be the place where you can fudge it.
Speaker: try to get a high salary and you'll get more points and it was really like i think going up a million yen yeah salary like a million yen chunk of your salary which is about six thousand dollars you get like 10 points which is like you know once once you like like let's say you're at 70 points which is the three-year visa if you can just get six thousand more dollars per year in your salary like now you're eligible for the five-year visa and pr after one year so it's like you know yeah I do think that right now salaries being low in Japan, meaning like, you know, a 1 million yen jump yeah gives you so many more points. yeah Like that is a good way to gain the system. I don't know how, you know, if you get an offer letter, like try to negotiate hard for just like a million more yen. I don't know. I'm curious, was the, going back to actually the school, was ICU like a bigger draw because it was a Japanese school? Well, yeah, specifically if you have a degree from a Japanese university, you get a bunch of 15 points. I don't remember the exact thing, but like, I think that was a good one. Yeah. about language?
Speaker: You do get points for, I think either getting N2 or N1 on the JLP, which is like a national Japanese language test here in Japan and one and N2 are the top two levels. Um, but because I had graduated from Japanese university, those points weren't eligible. So there are sort of like, if this, then that type things in it.
Speaker: That's the only one I remember. There's not too many, but for some reason i I don't have, I've never taken that test, so I didn't have it anyways. Profession, does that count? Engineer versus artist or whatever, you know, just or just general years of quote unquote working experience is sufficient.
Speaker: Just general years of work experience. yeah The other thing about the business that was interesting is that if you're, if the business that is sponsoring your visa, um, contributes 3% of revenue towards research and development, really very vague term, like just if it's general R and d you get like, you know, five more points or, you know, i don't remember any of the numbers here, but yeah. So our company could just be R and D.
Speaker: Yeah. 3% of revenue goes towards r and d you can get more points. Um, so maybe that if someone else is thinking about this out there, you know, work for like a science company or something like that. If the individual holds a patent, like even more stuff. So again, kind of sciencey, uh, type stuff. It's almost like you can reverse engineer back. Like, okay, what is the highest point per companies? Yeah. Like given my personal, like how old you are expected salary range, et cetera. Yeah. you could be like, okay, I got to work for like a research and development. Um, so one of the complications of the HSB visa, if someone's listening, they have all these qualifications, you need a company to sponsor that visa, right? Yeah. So this is an employment visa. So yeah, there needs to be a company sponsoring you. It's not, you're coming to Japan and starting a business that is not, you cannot do that under this visa. Um, it's not a startup visa either. Like, it's not like you have an existing business or startup visa. So
Speaker: It's interesting how we did it. And again, this is like, you know, but I've described it as a loophole. It's not really a loophole of the law. Like this is the law itself. But how me and Take specifically made this work is we have a company in Japan. You know, we started this company, I think, early 2024. And we're both owners. We both own this business 50%.
Speaker: um In Japan, there's roles of the company. There's representative directors, there's directors, and there's employees here. And a director is actually technically an employee. A representative director is not. That's the business owner or manager or whatever. So Take is a representative director of the business, and I used to be a representative director of the business.
Speaker: I resigned as a representative director of the business, and now I'm just an employee of the business. Sucka. Yeah. Technically, I'm a director, but i'm ah you know that's still considered- representative director like this right over here. Technically considered an employee of the business. And so I do think that this is, if you want to call a loophole, it's a loophole, but it's it's actually, you know it's just a the the realities of the of the law and the visa system is that if you and a buddy start a business in Japan, you have to make it profitable. like they They really poured over our financial statements, so like you can't just create a business that does nothing like you kind of hear about how people were doing with the mempaku visa and that kind of stuff you have to make the business profitable but if you and a buddy start a business in japan and one i guess it can only be one of you it can't be both of you that get the visa and one of you wants the visa one of you is a representative representative director one of you becomes the employee and that employee can get an employee visa through that business and that's exactly what we did
Speaker: I know most of our listeners are not in that zone and we did not like engineer this, you know, we, we honestly kind of just took life and and the path. And these were some of the things that fell into place, which we got really lucky. We got lucky. Like this just happened naturally. that I feel like a few things happen naturally. Setting up our business this way yeah and then like me getting on the HSP visa without fully really understanding the changing landscape of stuff. I think the core behind it, though, is Japan is looking for people that are actually making a real business. Not like a shell business, Airbnb business to get a visa. I think it needs to be like a real business and they...
Speaker: I remember when you're doing the application, they were like, really you were so detailed on your like resume. You need to find your employment letters. I think like last trip we were here, you're like kind of worrying like, oh crap, i you're calling Albertsons or something like that for your employment letter. I worked for a business that Albertsons bought, which is a large grocer chain in America. and I was trying to get in that business, uh, Albertson shut it down. It doesn't exist anything remember you on the phone with them. You're emailing like calling a grocery store. Like, Hey, you guys bought a business. Like no one can, no one helped me out there. Yeah. Luckily I found some old emails, but either way, like Japan is actually very, very diligently looking at this paperwork, looking at profits and like in our situation, our cop by that point it took two years almost, but our company was legit. You know, we had, we had a lot of the right things built and yeah, there's no shortcuts. Like I was able to get the HSP visa because I had, you know, I had studied hard when I was in school. And then I, you know, i worked hard during my career to, you know, to have that time in my career and move and you kind of work up the ranks there. And then like, you know, even starting our business, we didn't create like a fake business. We actually tried to create a business that was profitable and we had ran it for two years.
Speaker: And then I applied for the visa. So really like the best advice is just like, you know, try hard at the various things you're doing in life, whether it's school, whether it's work, you know, try hard, build up a little bit of a good career and this stuff gets easier the more experience you have and the more kind of you you are settled in your career.
Speaker: Yeah, I think like just setting up the company has been very, very challenging. And again, we weren't doing this intentionally for your visa and we just like, let's make a business that's solid and like,
Speaker: if Honestly, for a lot of our listeners, it's going to be like, honestly, out of scope unless you really want it. And I think that's for the people that are listening that like really want to be in Japan, that want to make a business, this is the right visa for you. You can't just use it as a vacate. Like, i don't know. Again, I own a property in Japan and you know I can get a visa. It's much, much more complicated than that.
Speaker: Yeah. um And do it with a buddy too. Like not just for this specific visa application. I feel like we always say like so much of this experience of starting this business in America, starting the business in Japan and buying property in Japan. Like so much of it was easier doing it with a friend. Like again, not just because you can start a business and then one of you can be an employee and get a, eventually get a work visa in Japan, but just like, In general, yeah, go go in it with with someone else. At one other person. And ended up hiring another person to help us, you know, Ryan to do all the Japanese bureaucracy and like.
Speaker: It took time. like the This is our company head headquarters right now, Takamori KK. like We're on it. Literally on the plate on the outside that says headquarters. and I think one thing led to the next. and you know we Looking back, the dots connected perfectly, but like looking forward, we were just like, ah i don't know. like Let's just do the next thing that makes sense to legitimize our business. and yeah It proved to get you 95 points on this HSP visa. All right, Joey, tell me about like the timeline. I know you're kind of always thinking about it for the past few years, but like, when did you start and how long did it take till when you got your visa in hand?
Speaker: Yeah. So I started, i think I submitted the application, ah with my immigration attorney in October of last year. So October, 2025. then. Okay.
Speaker: Long, you know, waiting is the hardest part. a Long time. I was just like, any news? Silence. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You get silence. And then I got, um they came back and asked me for more information. um Good news. Yeah, it was finance. Yeah, I guess like, I don't know if it's the no news is good news or news is good news. But they came back and came back and asked about, they want to see some bank statements to prove the financial. So again, they were very concerned about, you know, is this business Are they saying they're profitable, but are they actually profitable? You know, they wanted to, uh, proof there. So i think that was good. They had no followup questions for about me. It was followup questions about the business. So I think, you know, but kind of like a good sign. and That was December, so October to December, and then I got the certificate of eligibility ah in January. Certificate of eligibility is the thing you bring to the embassy to actually get the visa put in your passport, and it's literally just an email. It's like literally like if they send you something to your Gmail account, you print that off, and then that's what you bring to the embassy. but yeah So October to January is, what, three months? Not
Speaker: Bad. go um There are slowdowns. So I think like every immigration office in Japan right now is inundated. And I know that it can take a long time. Different visas are on different timelines. So it's different like departments within the immigration bureau. So the immigration attorney I was working with, she said that, oh, the HSP visa is different and it's not as backlogged as, say, the business manager visa. which can be, you know, people, I know people that are like taking them over half a year right now.
Speaker: And it depends if you're, if the immigration bureau you're going through is, you know, the Tokyo one or like a different prefecture one. And even if it's a different prefecture one, like sometimes they delegate the work to the Tokyo one, so it can just take up longer. So, um, yeah, slow timelines across the board, but I think the HSP visa is one of the faster tracks right now. And it took me, yeah, three months. Our other friend in Fukuoka, so it sounds like Fukuoka is actually a ah more quicker visa turnover process.
Speaker: Kind of ironically, he applied, I think, last and got it first. And like, he maybe is less qualified on paper than maybe you or some other other the folks. But it's interesting, your location matters so much in this this whole application process. Location really matters. And like when I apply for permanent residency, I'm planning on being in, you know, a dip Okinawa in this case. But like, yeah, I think like Tokyo...
Speaker: PR applications right now, it's taking 18 months. So hopefully it's like faster if I apply through Naha or something. Okay. For this visa though, you use this address? Yeah. So I went through Tokyo. So the slowest of the slow immigration bureaus, but the HSP visa is like a different department than the business manager of visas. And it is the quickest, quicker.
Speaker: you need an address to tie your visa to, and could that be a rental or something like that? or So it's where the, um, ah Business is based. So our business is based in Tama. So that's why the immigration goes through Tama. Like when we had, when we were thinking of, uh, Beppu as like for the business manager, manager visa, well, i would go through Fukuoka in that case. There's no immigration bureau in Oita. Um, so yeah, it depends where the business is. So if you're using, so in our friend's case who got the business manager visa in Fukuoka, He's saying, I'm starting my business in Fukuoka. don't know what documents he had to show to prove that, but that was his plan. And so it goes to the Fukuoka Immigration Bureau.
Speaker: Understood. Okay. So about three months is what you took. It might take longer. It seems like, yes, a long drawn out process just in general. I am thankful actually at end of the year, I know you, you, Joey's been taking more of the, um, weight of bookkeeping and like knowing our financials. It was a good exercise. Great exercise. To like whip us into shape. Cause you know, they, they, I was told by the immigration attorney that they're going to scrutinize the financial statements of the business. And they did in the end. Like we had to get those prepared. And at that point, we didn't really have it in a good situation in a good place. And i was kind of doing it manually. And, you know, so I wanted to do this more professionally. And it was also like a good exercise because going through that, getting the financial statements in a good place required us to look at a lot of other aspects of the business. Like what actually are we doing here with these certain things? You know, is this, should this, is this really part of this aspect of the, but you know, organizing the business. And it was about, you know,
Speaker: Um, also i think things with, uh, our Toki, which is like the business registration. yeah so weronize that i remember yeah So yeah. So in Japan, your business, you're going to have like a business registration document. They call it the Toki here. And one thing, so that also lists all the representative directors and also the history of representative directors. So definitely immigration saw that at one point I was a representative director cause it's, it's right there on the Toki. you You have the full history as well. It's not just the current state.
Speaker: but also on the Toki is the business purpose. And it's like a funny quirk, I would say of Japan that you need to like, you need to tell the government what your business purpose is. And you with maybe a little bit of wiggle room, you got stick to what that business purpose is. You can't just do any random thing. You got to stick to what's on that business document. And it costs us like $2,000. Every time we want to change it, we got to hire ah so some sort of um you know legal professional to change that document. You've got to worded in a certain way. So it's like a very strange quirk of Japanese business that you've got to say what the business does. You've got to stick to that. You can't change can't experiment, can't pivot as easily as you can in America. And then if you ever do want to pivot, you've got to get a lawyer to help you change it.
Speaker: I remember we had Tracy on, she's a Mimpaka queen on the podcast a little while back. And she just said, check every box kind of thing. And like I think we were very like niche. We put real estate and maybe vacation rental type was our original intent. We had actually like changed our toki when we were trying to buy the coin laundry. or like some It was all happening at once that we were like, oh, dude, do we change it? So it says coin laundry, so it's more legit for your visa. And like there was a lot of turmoil, like a little flux, i remember, right around that period. And changing the Toki, I think we've mentioned this before in the podcast, locks up a lot of stuff for your business. So for example, I can't remember something. Maybe it was like can it sell a property? Mimipaku application? couldn't buy the our old title property because our our thing was frozen. Remember out there, the Toki is very important. And for doing different things in Japan, a lot of times you'll be asked for the Toki or someone wants to double check your company's Toki and these things. And when they do that, They can see if it's currently locked or frozen. And so for example, when you're changing the business purpose, your Toki gets locked or frozen. I don't know exactly what the term is frozen for however long that process takes. Maybe it takes like a month, could be a month and a half and Other people that were asking to do these certain things, like, you know, purchase this other property in Otaru, something like maybe the seller needs that Toki or the the legal professional helping us purchase that property. And they say, oh, your Toki is frozen. Like can't do anything until it's unfrozen. It's just like this kind of. mess of yeah we were getting like the ink on show me show like we' we're getting multiple copies of that because it had to be valid within 30 days like the short story like if you making a business in japan is not easy it's not easy it is not it is not like america like getting a visa is not easy like all this is legitimately there's there's no shortcuts i think that's a really good way of saying it and it's been like
Speaker: It has been trudging through dirt dirt dirt like we spent so much money so much time so much headache just like going over this like what the F is this? Why are we doing this? But we made it you made it congratulations. Thank you. It's not only is no shortcuts. It's kind of like the opposite of a shortcut. It's there's it's more difficult than you expect. pro It's a it's ah It's a fence or, I don't know, like a higher barrier to entry, which I think that is what Japan wants. And it's doing doing it well. You know, we are a legitimate business. It is screening folks out who are not legitimate businesses. So it is doing its purpose, but maybe turning borderline people away.
Speaker: Yeah. Again, like the best advice is you got to do this legit. You got kind of build up your career for a certain number of years. You've got to, you know, build up your education, build up your career for a certain number of years and then start a business in Japan. You're probably not going get the visa right away, but then build up that business and like you can do it, but it's, it's, you know, no shortcuts. Yeah, I guess on that on that thread here, just pulling on it. So like are this podcast, obviously, we help people. We talk about buying a house in Japan. We can help you buy a home in Japan. It's a quick plug. For someone who's in the purchase process already bought and like wants to be here for a longer-term presence, of what advice do you give them? you know Before, we were always saying like business manager visa is like one way. You know you buy a property...
Speaker: Um, potentially, ah you know, maybe there's like two separate units on the property and you can use one as a home office and you start your business. or you know, something on with with a computer, whatever. That's kind of the advice we used to give people, you know, you can use the house.
Speaker: The house doesn't give you immigration rights, but you can use it for the purpose of the business manager visa. That's still actually still true, still true, but you can't use a home office anymore. So you do need to rent us a second office, but you know, you still can buy a house, live here in Japan, get the business manager visa. If you have $200,000 cash, you can invest into your business.
Speaker: It's still possible, but it just doesn't seem realistic for most people anymore i don't know if purchasing a property can help you get an employee visa. I just don't really see it ah in our case like this house right now is technically our Businesses headquarters. So it does I guess help in that sense, but I don't live here You know, I had to rent another place we werere go to live here there as like an employee dormitory initially, right? Yeah. And that has its own problems. I didn't fully understand all those problems. Our accountant was helping us there, but potentially one way. And again, it's not going to be like, Oh, that's the clear, easy solution. Like this path of using this property as an employee dormitory and me living here as an um employee, getting those benefits from the company as dormitory, like that had its own set of problems. Like, is that benefit taxable and like all that kind of stuff. So it's like, there's no easy way to do it. And honestly, I don't really think owning property in Japan,
Speaker: helps you too much ah getting the immigration visa other than it gives you a place to stay. Like, for example, me and you starting this business here, it really helped us not having to pay for a hotel for extended periods of time, you know, being here on the ground and, you know, meeting people and, you know, furthering our business activities for a month at a time and then going back home. Like that did definitely help.
Speaker: Totally. But i would I would argue the opposite, too. Like, had we not bought that property in Betbooth, none of this adventure would have started. With that, though, too, like, it Japan seems like it's a very chicken or the egg society, especially as you get your cell phone and bank account. Like, having the property as one piece of that puzzle did help in that we...
Speaker: We weren't intending for this to be our company headquarters, but we're like, okay, let's make this our company headquarters. And then it just made things easier, I think. like if we I don't know if we could have rented ah who couldn't have rented. as youre right so it's like Renting is very hard. So we needed, in retrospect, to have bought a property in order to bring our company and use it as a company headquarter. Great point about chicken and egg. I think you're right. like a lot of kind of what happens in Japan is like, oh, in order to like do this, you need this document. In order to get that document, you need like the the first document or whatever, right? and a chicken and egg Picture chicken and egg situation. And if there's anything within there that you can just like pick off and and get and remove it from the complication of the equation here, like for example, a house, um you know I do think that helps, exactly. It removes one aspect of the chicken and egg situation, like mobile.com, M-O-B-A-L.com is how you can get a Japanese phone number without having any immigration status here in We'll link in the show notes. We have an affiliate link. Use it. Yeah. Like that's another, like the phone number is part of the, like, you can't get a bank account with a phone number. Can't run apartment without the, but you know, the chicken and egg situation there. So like so picking off these aspects of the chicken and egg situation, I do think is a, you know, good, good thing to do. And again, I, I, us buying the house, it got us kind of in the game to even, it made things easier, even though it still sucked.
Speaker: It's, it doesn't, the house doesn't directly help you get an immigration yeah visa here, but it puts you in a position where you're able to spend more time in Japan. More opportunities are going to open up to you. You probably understand whatever market you're trying to go after by building a business here and getting a visa, like better by spending more time here. Like the indirect effects of it, I think are large just by virtue of being able to be in the country for longer periods of time. I would say the house helps you build that business.
Speaker: which then directly helps you do this path that we've done. But again, it's a very roundabout path that I think most people won't do, but is very doable. It is doable. like we We did it. We're not especially uniquely talented, or at least I think we aren't. with We're regular dudes who have made this happen. So I do want to encourage the listener who's maybe feeling like a little disheartened that like,
Speaker: We had no idea that this was going to be the path and things just worked as because I really do think, you know, action creates opportunity here. Um, you know, we didn't think we'd by buying that first Akia, we'd make a business and by buying the second Akia, that'd be headquarters that would then be able to be our headquarters. I would sponsor Joe, you know, like it's, it's kind of crazy how it all happened, but, uh, I would say if you are in the buying process, if you want to buy,
Speaker: As Joey mentioned, that is one controllable aspect of the whole process that you could pick off. You could buy it as a vacation home and then start slowly building a business and then move the headquarters. Stuff like that, I think, is is a long-term play. There are no shortcuts, though. It's a long-term play, and you put yourself in a position to get more opportunities related to business in Japan. Absolutely. like i think...
Speaker: We're kind of increasing your chances of like lucky stuff happening. And like by through us buying the house, we met people that helped us build the business or do like we went to met Ryan. We met when we met Linda. Like a lot of these things would be so much harder if we just like straight went in trying to be like, okay, to get a visa versus like, I think this is like a prelimin kindergarten or not a preliminary step before considering long-term kind of permanent residence. Another way to think about it too is that you know when we bought the house in Beppu, we saw like friction in the home buying process and the search and discovery aspect of that process. And we were like, oh, fri you know friction is opportunity. We can build a business here. If you buy a house in Japan and then say like you want to get a car as well, which right now is a high-friction zone, I would say, if that's your thing, like helping people, um you know, non-resident foreigners who want to have bought a vacation home here and want to ah buy and own a car in Japan, like that's a high friction zone right now, but also high opportunity. Like by just trying to do something a little bit complicated in Japan, you'll probably find business opportunities. And I personally think that the the industry of like foreigners, like there's so much interest in Japan right now. Like tourism is off the charts. There's so many like foreigners looking towards Japan. And I personally think like that's a good industry to be in the foreigners looking towards Japan and being a foreigner looking towards Japan and buying a house here, you'll probably find some parts of that process that have more friction. And maybe that's the genesis of your business idea to help solve that problem.
Speaker: Totally. So many different routes about it, but I'd say like, Buying a house in Japan, overall net helpful if you want to be in Japan. That's like the simple simple correlation. As far as directness to getting a visa, it's hard to calculate that percentage, but it it doesn't hurt it.
Speaker: It definitely, I think, puts you on boots on the ground. Tourist visa still allows for two two entries of 90 days. You know, you can do it. Boots on the ground, I think, is an important thing to like start. That's how we did it. You know, we were tourists here for three years.
Speaker: So if you are looking to buy an Akia, first off, contact us or buy a home in Japan. This is the first step. And I'm not just saying that. Again, I think this just happened and worked for us.
Speaker: Making the company is this whole beast of itself. Like I think we have to do a deep dive and retro for what it's been like. I don't. wish this pain amongst my worst enemy, I'd say, but just be ready. Like I, it was tough. Like it's bad. Yeah. It's solo. Impossible.
Speaker: I'd say impossible. Yeah. possible It's too much. Like, There's too many things like when we like somewhat have a team now and still a lot of it feels very difficult, confusing. And all of a sudden we learn more and like the whole tax withholding invoice thing is like a new. so if you get an invoice from a photographer, for example, like you got it with it's on consumption tax, like all these things. It's all like strange quirks and taxation here. But it's cool. We're learning a lot. I think this whole visa process, I think pushed you to the limit at certain points. You were like pretty strict. Like I was like, Oh no, it's totally okay. Like it was, it was not an, it was stressful for you. Right. Or one thing that is stressful in life is like applying for things. Like I also felt like so much of my life was like applying to be part of someone else's system. Like you are in high school and you're applying for university. And then then I was in university applying for, grad school and then out of grad school, I'm like applying for jobs. Like I always felt like I would, you know, you're trying to win someone else over so that you can join their system. And I feel like, you know, and then starting this business, I feel like it was such a breath of fresh air to not, like you're creating your own system in life. Like you're building your own life. Like it's just you versus the world almost a little bit. There's no system that you're trying to be, ah some external system that someone else created and you're just trying to fit in there. It's really just you versus the world.
Speaker: And I felt that, i like I felt really good starting this business because suddenly that like, I don't have to apply for it. Like I don't have to prove myself to somebody else anymore. It's just really like, can I prove myself to myself a little bit, you know, can I build this business?
Speaker: But then applying for this visa, I had those same feelings again. i was like, okay, I'm applying for someone else. hack baby And so that's the other, I feel like another like kind of deeper underlying motivation why I want the PR is like, i don't want to have to keep applying for stuff in life. Like I don't like that feeling of applying for someone else's system. And if I can just get the PR, then it's like I don't have to a permanent residency. i don't have to keep applying for visas to be part of this Japanese system anymore. Like I'm in it. So okay so the HSP visa relief, you're good. Like you're in the clear now. Yeah. Like I don't have a bank account yet. I don't have a like phone number. like Another retro on that. Yeah. there's There's a whole bunch of setup stuff once you get to Japan. What's the PR path roughly look like?
Speaker: You know, one more application than you're at PR, right? With the HSP visa, actually, the HSP visa is interesting in that I can set up side businesses, as long as it's a GK or KK, yeah in a related field. LLC versus C Corp. Yeah, LLC or C Corp, which is a related, as long as it's in a related field to what I'm employed to do. So if it's a similar kind of,
Speaker: Prop tech, real estate tech business. That's okay. I can't set up a sole proprietorship, which is a little bit what I'm more interested in for sort of freelancing opportunities. And I had to, again, reapply for extra work permits. So I'm doing that right now. Fingers crossed I get that.
Speaker: And then I'll have basically the same setup I had in Canada I can do here in Japan. So hoping hoping to get that. After 12 months, I can apply for permanent residency. That's crazy. That's that's like a such an accelerated path, right? I don't know exactly what that process is like, to be honest. I think that they're going to look at certain... I think they're gonna like...
Speaker: Double check. you have to You have to be still under the same visa and still have the same number because the points can change, right? If you get older, if I cross 40, I drop in points. But but i got I scored over points, so I'm not really too worried. But like if I turned 40 and then that brought me below 80 points, I would no longer be in the same situation as when I got the visa. You wait until you get too old, bro. It's just gonna go So, yeah. So when you apply for PR, you need to be at least still scoring 85 or 80 points at the time. at the time yeah um so I'm pretty confident I'll, I'll still be there in another, 11 months time.
Speaker: And then, so that's one aspect and you have to be, have those same points for the duration of the PR process. So that could be another year and a half say, so like, you know, I'm, I'm still pretty confident I'll be that, but you know just something to keep in mind there.
Speaker: Um, The other thing that I think is more concerning that they're looking at is they're looking for, it seems like minor infringements on certain things. boy The three main categories are ah traffic accidents. So if you're involved in a traffic accident and I, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I think it's more like if you're in a serious traffic accident and you're at fault is really the issue here. But again, I was just rented a car recently and I scraped up the side of it and they're like, you need to file a police report. And I was like, no way am I filing a police report. know, I, you know, so it's, it's kind of like, i I just scraped it the side of the car. But anyways, it's that kind of stuff. It's like, I think in Japan, there's two types of tickets. There's blue tickets and red tickets. And I wouldn't have gotten a ticket for filing a police report because I scraped up the car anyways. But I think blue tickets are things like parking in the wrong place or that kind of maybe going through a stop sign. I don't know, minor sort of traffic infringements. And then red tickets are the more serious tickets. Like maybe if you, don't know, slant, I don't know what gets a red ticket, but.
Speaker: I've heard it's the red tickets. Deligerent driving or something. Yeah, drunk driving, for example. I've heard it's the red tickets that are the the issue here. so it Makes sense. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I think a pretty safe driver. I did scrape up two minivans, whatever. But anyways, that's one of the main criteria is looking at traffic incidents. I don't know why, but that's something they're focusing on. And you can get rejected. You know, it's a little bit of a black box. Is it like one traffic violation? Is it many? Who knows? okay The second two are are very similar and it's, um late tax payments and late pension plan oh payments. boy, okay. so be on it with our company here. Let's say you you were lazy or whatever and you didn't you're not prepared for tax season and you're like, okay, I'm just gonna file an extension and then pay it later.
Speaker: Don't do that. like five like Guess is the advice I've gotten. like Guess at how much pat tax you need to pay even if you just put a low amount. like Pay it on time. and then fix it later. Good advice. And they'll at least see that you paid it on time. But okay, there was these few things that the Japanese equivalent of the IRS came back with, and then you got to fix it. Do that. Pay it on time. And same with pension stuff. Although pension is a little bit different when you're an employee. So basically on the visa, you have to be a good standing citizen and hit these criteria. so yeah But one year, okay, pristine, Joey, make sure don't mess up any. So it's one year, and then it's the application process. So like 24 months. So i I got to be careful on the road. Okay, okay. And I wonder if there's a new laws in Tokyo with the bicycles. is that That's why I'm like, all right, I got to be careful on a bicycle too. Like no umbrella, that kind of stuff. I don't know if that's a, those are probably blue tickets if I had to guess. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, a lot of information. If you as a listener have made it this far, you know, you're probably pretty invested in Japan. You're probably bought a house, buying a house, looking at PR. Just to kind of conclude it, what are like three tips you would give someone who just like in that middle phase of thinking about this whole this whole thing that you just went through? Big ah tip number one, biggest advice is just like, just work hard at whatever you're working on in life and be a little bit ambitious in the sense like that. You know, if. it chto gun but Yeah, like you don't have to graduate from a Japanese university, but like if you're in university, like make sure you graduate because you're goingnna get points for that. You know, if you are starting your career, you know, maybe don't apply.
Speaker: Don't try to apply for work in Japan after like two years of a career, that you know, maybe go for five years and then apply like, you know, try to build up. a career first your education background and career first do you recommend that they look at that scoring guideline and kind of reverse engineer or is that not the right no you definitely can't like again if if you are dead say you're 24 years old right now and you are dead set or even younger speaking to our intern or something you know what would you say yeah like if you're in your early 20s and maybe you're in school right now or maybe thinking of university like yeah you'll get more points if you go to japanese university so if you can Go to a Japanese university. That it might not be in the budget for everybody, but, you know, go to university because you get more points for that. Go to a Japanese university. You get more points. Go to grad school if you want those points, you know, get more work experience. You'll get more points. yep
Speaker: Try to get a patent. I have no idea how hard a patent is is is to get. But the more we work on a business, I don't believe any of this kind of stuff is like you don't. have it outible Yeah, it's figure out a bowl, you know, and. if you, you know, R&D, if you want to work in sciences, try to find a more research focused business because they're likely putting 3% into R&D and you'll get more points that way. So yeah, definitely look at the calculator. The calculator is way simpler than I thought it would be. Um, and you can kind of see what they're looking for, but yeah, I would say both work, whether you're in your twenties, thirties, or what, forties, maybe you might be losing a lot of points, but I think it's still doable if you can get a high salary. But yeah, it's like,
Speaker: you know, try to try to go to school, try to get work experience. It's like that kind of thing. Like just, you know, Chanto, you know, gone by day. Okay. That's number one. Number two, do a lot of this in Japan stuff with a buddy. Like again, said it on this podcast too. Like a lot of this would not have been possible. without a buddy so like i would yeah don't recommend doing this alone find a co-founder find a buddy who wants to buy a house with you um and uh like you can really that buddy can't want to be in japan though right i can't want to be in japan in the u s as as well uh but then maybe you could get a third person a third rep director and then both of you can't so like yeah Yeah, definitely. Yeah. You know, you you as the like back on the Chanto Gambate thing, it's like you got to do it seriously, too, once you get into Japan and and start the business. Like you can't build a business that is just like a fake business. Like you got to try to actually build a real business. And then once you have more revenue, like more things, more doors open up and maybe you can contract. we had a lot of contracts. We had to show them and stuff. Right. Yeah. A lot of contracts. Consultants. Yeah. And then, you know, maybe as your business grows, you'll have more opportunities because you'll have more revenue. You can get a Japanese representative director and pay him a little bit just to stay on your company. And then both you and your friend can get visas. So yeah, that's like, you know, the Chanto, like you got to do it legit as well. Yep.
Speaker: Number three. If don't have number three, i have of a number three. Let's hear your number three while thinking. No shortcuts. I think that's really it. Like there's no, I think people want the shortcuts. That's just kind of life now. People want the quick, like, how do I get a visa? How do I get a house? buy Yeah. how do it Life hacking. buy All of this has been very hard for us. Maybe it's not hard for everyone, but I i really think there are no shortcuts at all in in building this business, even buying a house in Japan.
Speaker: Uh, it's not going to be easy, but it has been fun. You know, I think it's been an alert like, we've learned so much. We learned more in the past two years than we have, like, I think past 20 years in my life. I think that does kind of tie into like what I was thinking as a third piece of advice here too in the like there's no shortcuts like I was going to say something around the lines of you have to want to kind of like live this life like you have to want to be part of Japanese society because there's going to be like a lot of frustration like I still get really frustrated with certain things in Japan there's all these like frustrating things that I find in Japan like getting told no you can't do this one thing when it seems like a silly reason, I think is like, for me personally, I get a lot of frustration there. But like, you have to be able to roll with those punches. You have to really want to be in Japan. If you're just kind of like, oh, I could be in Japan or I could be in Thailand or I could be like, you know, somewhere else. Like Japan is like so specific sometimes and the frustrations will definitely like come out of the woodwork eventually. I do think like you have to want to like live this life of like, frustrations like the the whole Toki situation like there's gonna be frustrations but as long as you love being in Japan like it'll work it'll work yeah it'll work I think like ah for a listener who who is just thinking about buying a home like this all this seems super super daunting and like
Speaker: want to emphasize, like, we did not have this all geniusly planned out, but, you know, I think we've been talking about our business, like, the best way to learn is to try to do it and do one step ahead of the other and, like, work at this and it will happen. You know, again, we're not doing anything specifically special here. Putting yourself in a place where your opportunities will come, like, luck will come, I think, is is important and that's Kind of like the boots on the ground situation with the house here. All like Steve Jobs, the the dots only connect looking backwards. you know And I think it absolutely is connecting. And I think just we keep doing what we want to do and it and and a are passionate about it. It seems to keep working out. So Joey, congratulations on officially making it to Japan. Arigato gozaimasu. Joey's working really hard on his Japanese. He's calling the onsen for us late later on. like we're I think he's organizing with some stuff. so I'm excited to have you officially on the ground and looking forward to talking about the PR process in a couple months or a year. Let's see.
Speaker: Yeah, next February. Last call to action from us. If you are interested in, we do have our, Joey's immigration lawyer here. If you are interested in intro, please shoot us an email at contact at akia-mart.com. She's great. We'd be happy to introduce you. We want to have her on the podcast. We need check how public she wants to be, though.
Speaker: Don't forget to like and subscribe this podcast, too. We really appreciate you guys listening, and we'll catch you the next episode. See
Speaker: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Buying a House in Japan. If you find the show helpful or at least entertaining, give us a five-star rating. Takes five seconds and really goes a long way. If you or someone you know is looking for a Japanese home, check out Akiyamart.com, our English-friendly site that lets you browse over half a million listings. That's A-K-I-Y-A-M-A-R-T.com to find your dream home in Japan.
Speaker: If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at akiamart.com. You can also find us on Instagram as well as TikTok, where we post properties, tips on the home buying process, and updates on our own purchases and renovations. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.
