Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to the Buying a House in Japan podcast. My name's Take. And I'm Joey. And we're two friends who just quit our corporate jobs and bought a cheap house in rural Japan. The goal of this podcast is to document the highs and lows of the process while informing you of every step you need to take in order for you to do it yourself too. We're by no means experts and we're doing this for the first time, but we hope this gives you a realistic expectation if you embark on this journey yourself and we hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker: Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of buying a house in Japan podcast. Today's episode is one of what we like to call a deer diary series where we just check, get everybody back up to speed with what's going on with our house in Beppu, some AccuMart updates and some new goals, just letting everybody know where we're at in the process as well.
Speaker: It's been a hot minute, Jerry. I think, yeah, we talked before this, we're going to be really transparent. This is actually just stuff where top of mind for us might not be super informative, but these are problems and things we're facing right now as we're trying to build both this house kind of Airbnb business while also Aki Mark kind of just navigating this new Japanese real estate territory.
Speaker: Yeah, we got some updates on the house in Beppu basically stuff doesn't always go smoothly. We're learning stuff's not, doesn't seem to always go smoothly. We're doing a lot of this from remotely right now. I'm in Canada, Takis in California. So we're trying to orchestrate a bunch of things. So if anyone else there is thinking of buying one of these cheaper homes in Japan and then orchestrating everything from wherever you are in the world, there's some hiccups. It's too good to be true. We had first talk to our contractor and he was like,
Speaker: I will be done by end of January. Should've known that I've experienced a couple of remodels and it's always the same. It's always going to cost more. It's always going to take longer. I for some reason felt like it was going to be different in Japan, but alas, here we are middle of February happened. Yeah. So low down. Oh geez. First off our contractor, really cool guy. I think Joey spent a lot of time getting to know him and overall he's a really good person, but he is a one man army. So we had a choice of going with kind of the small.
Speaker: one man army contractor for a cheaper price, or we could go with like the more formal larger company. We decided to go with the one man army because he was a referral. He was kind of slow. I think up until January ish, we had expected him to complete more, but
Speaker: There was a dagger in there. It sounds like, unfortunately, he fell off a ladder or something, and something broke his knee. Joey, I think you got better description, but does that sound about right? Yes. Yeah, so I've been texting with him directly. And he told me that, yeah, he fell off a ladder, not at our house, at, I think, his mom's house in Tochigi. So initially, he went back to, no, not Tochigi, Ibaraki, somewhere at one of those satellite
Speaker: Prefectures around Tokyo. He went back there cause his mom was sick. And then I think he was doing some repairs either at a place he owns up there or maybe another job. I'm not exactly sure.
Speaker: And he fell off the ladder and got what sounds like a hairline fracture in his knee, some bone in his knee, and also got some rebar impaled in his leg. Uh, so pretty gruesome. He sent us a picture. He got a big, lots of bandages wrapped around his leg, but yeah, it seems like he's, this was shortly after Christmas. So in a while, I like how Fumi sent us the photo. It was like his leg all banded bandaged up and.
Speaker: She was like, it doesn't look like he's in a hospital. I was like, what? So let me suspicious and if boom, he's suspicious. I'm suspicious for me again. I kind of our fixer on the ground in bet. Boo, which is apps. She's been absolutely crucial in our operation, but she's kind of been the bad cop. I feel like I'm being a little harsh, but.
Speaker: I'm also the bad cop, I'd say. I trust, I mean, I don't know. I spent the most time with Sato -san, so I'm hoping to trust him and take what he said at face value. But as soon as Fumi said that, like, it doesn't even look like he's in the hospital. And I looked at the picture and like, yeah, okay. One, it didn't look like he was in a hospital. And two, like the bandage wrapped around his leg kind of looked like it.
Speaker: Yeah, something like, I don't know, like anyone, you could throw it together from stuff. Well, just to give the audience an update, our house is still pretty much has, I don't think it's progressed too much. So we have two floors. Our bottom floor is pretty torn up. Everything's I think pretty like mid 50, 40 % complete bottom floor. We should have been done by now, but it's pretty.
Speaker: unlivable. Our upstairs is exactly the same, I think. I'm not sure if the toilet's still working, but we're kind of, it feels like we haven't had any progress and it kind of sucks. Yeah. Yeah. I think progress basically stands still since around Christmas time, but yeah, back to the too good to be true. So Sato -san, maybe I shouldn't have said his name, whatever, too late. Yeah. So contractor A Sato -san.
Speaker: He was cheaper than we expected to be and his timeline was like very fast. Even when he said, I think, I thought he said he was going to be first time maybe like end of January, end of February. He was telling us like both floors, all these custom work we wanted to do. And we were both really for $30 ,000 all this work by end of January. Too good to be true. He was so precise though. His quality of work though is there. Then that was something like I was really surprised by like.
Speaker: his woodworking and like just the way he was really clean about it. I'm still really impressed with his quality of work, but speed of work, something to be desired and something at least we know now Joey for next time that we should buffer time in.
Speaker: I agree quality of work is really good. He was spending a lot of time making sure every bit of the, so he focused a lot on the Horikotatsu. So sort of like a sunken area under this main table we're putting in the living room. He was spending a lot of time making sure all of that was square and plumb and level. And the bottom of the Horikotatsu floor was parallel to the upper floor. So very precise. And yeah, I think he takes pride in his work. He's a single contractor guy.
Speaker: Damn it. So like a big company. We might now need to consider the big company. So we talked about contractor B. The reason we didn't go with them was they weren't super down with the custom things we wanted to do. Joey and I have talked a little bit about, do we get these guys to do the upstairs? Like we do want to go back to Beppu. We were supposed to go back in March, but now I'm not optimistic. Sato says his, he's going to start working on our place this time next week. Kind of skeptical.
Speaker: And he also has another job I think lined up. So I'm overall kind of bad cop, not feeling like we should bank, put our eggs in one basket here. What do you think about getting contractor B or someone else to do our upper floor or even take over the entire project at this point? Yeah. I.
Speaker: that the
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. Well, I don't know when we're going to go back. I think we're still going to go back either way in May, but even if he were to start next week, Joey, I don't think he's going to be a hundred percent done by May. I am assuming the other job he has is giving the same amount of pressure and like same level of disappointment. So.
Speaker: Let's see, this will be a good, good, good thoughts to look back on a couple of months ago. I mean, yeah, we'll continue discussing this as we go forward, but if anything, I'm cool with maybe a second contractor just doing the upstairs. So side of the sun just stick to the downstairs. He's not climbing any ladders anytime soon. Anyways. Yeah. It'll be interesting that we paid him 50%. So we paid him what, like 16 K USD. I don't think he's done 16 K worth of.
Speaker: work. So that is one thing we've, that has crossed our mind. Like, Hey, if we need to recoup our money, how do we go about that? It's definitely an uncomfortable conversation, but might happen, right? Hopefully not. Hopefully not. I say we see how it goes. Let's get him, you know, back in the house, see how it goes. Okay. Yeah. I want to stay optimistic. Let's see how it goes next week. We'll check in with Fumi. But in other news, we've also asked Fumi our fixer. We meant we did an episode on this a little while ago. There was a,
Speaker: How's that burned out? A couple of lots from us. We're going to proceed and put in an offer, I think, for this lot. It was, I think we had talked to a construction guy in Tokyo and we're like, hey, how much do you think it would cost to tear, like, removal the rubble? What do you say? Like, I think you said around three to four K USD, right, Jerry? I don't remember. This was a guy in Osaka, I think. Yeah. So he'd given us a mountain.
Speaker: The lot again is maybe like three minute walk from us. It's a pretty big lot, but it has all the burned down house on it. I don't think anyone's going to buy it. So I was talking to Joey. We need a parking spot. It could be a cool rec space. I don't really know what we're going to do with it, but.
Speaker: We should shoot a shot. If the price is right, it is very close to our house. And I met the guy in the local Ji So Ji Onsen. So I got his phone number. Fumi reached out to him, I think twice, but he didn't pick up. So maybe we check in with, that was maybe like a week ago. We talked to Fumi about that. So maybe we check in with Fumi. He could have been arrested for murder or something. Where is he? I think we discussed that on an earlier podcast, but yeah, two people died in that fire and he's the sole survivor.
Speaker: Yeah. All right. Well, we're going to try to, we'll keep you guys updated, but hopefully we can buy that lot. We're going to probably put a low ball offer, maybe even like bring cash and be like, Hey, I don't know if that's going to work, but would be awesome. If we could get that extra lot just for parking or something, we could put a shed on it, put a sauna cold plunge, something cool there. Yeah.
Speaker: But all right, zooming out, I think we haven't talked, we talked a little bit about this last time that we were creating our KK, which is our LLC. This we're naming it Takamoto after a couple of different things, but we are, as we are doing this, part of the reason we're making this KK or entity in Japan is to make a bank account.
Speaker: We had to jump through a couple hurdles in order to have the bank or in order to get the bank account, we needed to assign a local Japan director. We had initially asked.
Speaker: our friend Fumi to do it, but it seems like there were some like pension and insurance issues. She was a little hesitant to get on payroll. And I understand that since something we didn't understand. So we did file, we found another service called JOS. We've talked with them. They're bilingual based in Tokyo. They're letting us use someone on their staff as a director. We're also going to be using their address. I think the benefit of going through them is
Speaker: They've done this before specifically they've made bank accounts for foreigners, but it is expensive Joey. Yeah. Kind of the mix of working with this lawyer to set up the company and then working with this accounting company to set up the bet or give us a shot at getting a bank accounts and having that set up.
Speaker: it's this kinda complicated song and dance to do this as a foreigner in Japan. It's all possible, as Takei said, expensive, conservative estimate, uh, $19 ,000, just over $19 ,000. I'm guessing it's going to be...
Speaker: super conserved a fairly sizable minimum deposit in the bank account. Now you can start with just one yen. You don't need a deposit this size. We put in that much. How was it? 1 million yen? I think 1 million yen, which is like $8 ,000.
Speaker: Yeah. Let me check it. Why did we do that actually? So one reason why you do want a large balance in the bank account is if you're going for a business manager visa, but I don't think that's in the cards for us right at the moment or a little cashflow thin, but so maybe we take that out. I think we had done it because we had gotten an advice that having a little bit more money in there shows a little bit more legitimacy as we go for the bank account. I think we're really.
Speaker: All of this we're really doing could like show and have the best shot for the bank account. Again, we made the KK instead of the GK. There's two different types of companies. The KK is seen in Japan a little bit more as a more legit company. And we're trying to go legit as possible with our Takamoto name, KK and a little bit more cash. I'm looking at the spreadsheet right now. If I change the minimum balance from 1 million yen to 1 yen, which is the legal.
Speaker: minimum threshold, the conservative estimate goes down to $12 ,000. Yeah. I think that's what we should be budgeting, but let's, let's see. I think we still go through with it. If we wanted to all of a sudden go for the business visa, that puts us in a much better spot, I think. And again, we'll have, we should have Rob from SheMax Legal, who's helping us create our KK on the next podcast. And he can talk a little bit about that more.
Speaker: Yeah. So the reason, yeah, so it's, and then this is all to open a bank account in Japan and then we can Airbnb and this will be the company that runs the Airbnb. And so the Airbnb process is being held up by this and it just, there's several steps here. So one, we start this KK two, we use this accounting company to get us bank account. And then three, we set up the.
Speaker: Airbnb business, which we haven't even really explored that yet, but that's going to involve getting like the fire warden and the earthquake warden over to the house in Beppu to check to make sure everything's up to code. The barrier to entry is a lot higher than we initially thought, but I think we're also trying to do this from like the most legitimate path possible. I think this is actually maybe going a little bit overboard if you're listening and you're just kind of like casually wanting to buy something. I don't.
Speaker: I don't know if you need the bank account though. What do you think, Joey? If you ever studied in Japan and had a bank account at that time and it's still active, most likely not active, but it's still active, maybe you could just use that. I don't know. Yeah. I think there are people that are doing it without a bank account, but
Speaker: Our intent is to be here for the long haul. We'll talk about it in a little bit, but we want to buy more properties. We might want to open up shop a little bit more so the KK and the bank account are kind of a no -brainer for us at this point. If you do, say you set up Airbnb in Japan, could you just pay an American bank account through the Airbnb app?
Speaker: Yes, I believe so, but you would need to report that income. So yeah, I think if you're going through straight Airbnb, you probably wouldn't need a bank account, but I think it makes things a lot harder from like paying your cleaners and stuff like that. But that's a good question. I think we should figure that out.
Speaker: Yeah, we are trying to do it the most legitimate way, just a little room for error, especially as we're thinking about another property and having a little bit of an Airbnb empire. The folks we're using, too, are really legit. We've learned a ton from them. They're definitely not the cheapest, I think. But that's also, I don't know, I feel like really good with both our CPA we're working with and also our lawyer that's helping us make the company.
Speaker: I feel like a lot, I feel very confident they know what they're doing. Yeah. And I feel good about the choice we made to go this way as well. One, we're doing everything right by the authorities and two, it opens up a path for a business manager visa.
Speaker: That's everything related to G Soji Lux, our Airbnb. Again, we're going to keep documenting, but a couple months from now, hopefully we should be over the hump and have a bank account and have a company. I think time estimate, Joey, would you say April 1st, we'll have everything sorted.
Speaker: Or is that to take for the KK and the bank account? Let's go April 1st. Okay. April 1st. Actually, I'm guessing May 1st, if I had to be honest, May 1st. Yeah, that makes sense. I also, I was trying to go for the optimistic time prediction there. I think May 1st. All right. A lot of big updates. Let's switch gears a little bit. Akiya Mart, Joey, what have you been working on? How's it looking Akiya Mart website wise?
Speaker: Yes, we're doing a redesign. So we got a designer friend of ours. She works at Squarespace, really good designer to redesign AccuMarch. She came up with three different designs. We showed it to a few different people and overwhelmingly everyone said design number three. So we designed, I picked two and design number three was in my top two. So we're going with design number three. It's looking fly.
Speaker: Yeah. Super fly. We're legit now. We're going to look pretty legit. We got some feedback, especially around like the pricing page and checkout page that kind of feels like.
Speaker: It's kind of just thrown together. It was built under, let's get something working first and then come back and polish it up. And now we're in the polish it up phase, but yeah, we got some feedback that the pricing page and checkout page people don't feel comfortable putting in their credit card details on a page that looks as it does. Kind of our friend pointed out, I was like, I kind of got kind of, kind of makes sense. You were looking at it. I was like, how secure is this? So I think design is going to make a big difference in them.
Speaker: I mean, dude, Joe, you built this site in a couple of months. So I think this is only natural that we have a big design revamp. And, uh, yeah. Color scheme, color schemes changing from pink to purple. No, not the sock. I like the sakura theme, cherry blossom theme changing to purple, but it's good. We're going to look more professional people to a threat. We're a threat now. That's what I was saying.
Speaker: Yeah, we've also done a ton of consults over the past. We mentioned in our last podcast, I think we booked around 80 consults. We had a lot of no shows, but we are closing this out at this point. We just don't have the time to keep on doing these. And I think for the most part, most people have been the same at top five frequently asked questions and we're happy to still help, but we also need to have time to build. So I think it's good that we're putting an end to those consults or at least putting a charge on them and significantly lowering
Speaker: the amount of times available that plus I am starting a new job. So things are going to change a little bit, but yeah, I think it was a good, there was a lot of chats, a lot of cool people we met though.
Speaker: Yeah, we're still, I mean, we're still doing them into next week and the week following. So we've been doing these consults pretty much every workday since at least the Business Insider article. So it's been, it's been a lot of consults, maybe 80, we were guessing. We had 500 ,000 views in January on our site. Joey, that's crazy. And I think we just, that was an explosion. I think we're looking for the dust to settle. We got a ton of feedback. So heads down building, kind of rethinking our direction and
Speaker: Actually it brings up a good point where we've had a subscription model. We are towing around with the idea of actually going a little bit more B to B with all the eyeballs we're getting on Akiya Mart. We might be looking to work with Japanese agents for specifically people that want to sell houses to foreigners. We've quickly learned there's a huge appetite specifically on these Akiya houses, but in general that people are looking to buy in Japan. So.
Speaker: If you're a Japanese real estate agent listening to this, we'd love to work with you. And if one, please send us their names and we're happy to get in contact. Yeah. Subscription model was, we definitely validated the idea. There's demand here. We're getting subscribers paying to see these listings. So definitely there is demand in the space, but it would be nice to make it free. I feel like that's the norm in the West. No one pays for a real estate website. Yep. Yeah. It would be nice to open that up and see if we can make revenue on the, on the supply side.
Speaker: through working with Japanese agents, it's a little bit less, having a subscription is automatic. People just sign up. This is a little bit more when you basically need to sell the product to Japanese agents. So less scalable in that sense, but hopefully provides a better experience for the end users. Potentially it's more stable as well.
Speaker: We've also had, like, fundamental thoughts around, do we change our name? We realized that we are named Akiyamart, and of course, that's where we started looking at Akiyas, but also we do want, we do have non -Akiya houses on Akiyamart, and it's been brought to our attention, like,
Speaker: Is our name misleading? Do we want to maybe rebrand? So that's something we've thought about a couple of names of. Jillo has one G Pong another. I mean, it's, it's, it's now we're, if we're trying to switch our revenue stream over to real estate agents, potentially these real estate agents are already hesitant to try to sell Acia in the first place abandoned home. So potentially.
Speaker: It's not the great greatest branding in that sense. And we do have, and it's, it is also slightly a misnomer in the sense that we have listings of the whole price spectrum. Yep. And yo, I forgot to mention, we got featured in Nikkei Shimbun, Japan's, I think largest, one of Japan's largest newspapers. They called us in it. I, they said Akiya Jipangu. Wait, I guess Jipangu is what Marco Polo used to call Japan land of gold or whatever he called it. So that's kind of where we're like, do we change names? Jipangu.
Speaker: Yeah. So we have a domain named Jillo as like Z like Japanese Zillow. We're a little scared to use it. I don't know if anyone's listening. Let us know. Give us the green light, please. Yeah. Give us a green light. The other, yeah. The other idea was G Pongo, which is kind of like this. It's interesting. So G Pongo. Yeah. If you Google it, it's what Marco comes from the name that Marco Polo called Japan. So.
Speaker: I think it also has negative connotations. So the Nikeshin article was Akiya Jipangu, like, I don't know, maybe sort of like a conqueror type of a Western conqueror coming in and scooping up Japanese real estate. So potentially negative. I do think it's like, I don't know, an interesting name. Like this is, it is an interesting name, but interesting name, potentially a little negative and jipangu .com is already taken. So, all right. Well, we'll shoot a shot, but.
Speaker: All right. With all this rebrand, with our big redesign, with what we're thinking, we're actually thinking about throwing a park party and a May in Tokyo, maybe Yoyogi Park. Joey and I are figuring out when we're going to be in Japan next. And we figure we've been talking to so many cool people in the real estate space in Japan that we'd love to get everyone together and have a beer. I hate being on zoom calls all day and I would love to be like, see people in the flesh. So if you listen to this more details to come, but we'd like to throw an Akiya Mart
Speaker: Version 2 launch party in Yoyogi Park, sometime end of May.
Speaker: t -shirts coming to free t -shirts. All right. Guess we're going to Japan, May. Let's do it. Hopefully our house is ready by then and our bank accounts ready. All right. Another, I guess the really exciting thing that we're thinking further down the line, maybe we're putting the cart before the horse here, but we're talking about new goals. What's our next project? Joey, what are we thinking for step two of our house buying game in Japan?
Speaker: Yeah. So the house in Beppe was a lot of fun. It's not done yet, but you know, that type of thing, that was a really fun trip. And if we can, if we have the capital, we'd like to keep buying more properties. So what we're looking at is property in Tokyo.
Speaker: So there's a few reasons for that. One, me and Take both spend a bunch of time in Tokyo. We got friends there, so it would be nice to have a home base in Tokyo. Two, looking ahead to any, if we were to ever try to get financing for subsequent properties, a reinforced concrete building can be used as collateral in Japan, especially if it's in Tokyo, maybe reinforced concrete outside of Tokyo. You can't use it as collateral, but we got a tip that reinforced concrete building in Tokyo can be used as collateral for a loan.
Speaker: so for a few different reasons. Oh, and also the Airbnb profitability of Tokyo. So few different reasons are all pointing us towards looking at a property in Tokyo. We're by no means abandoning.
Speaker: Beppu, by the way, we talked to Anton, who's one of the big influencers in the space. And he was like, Oh, you guys are smart for picking Beppu. I heard it's the number two most searched spot on booking .com. And we're like, okay. First time we're here, everyone's asking us like, why'd you buy Beppu? And we're like, uh, hot springs, but we're going to look like geniuses a couple of years from now, Jerry, fingers crossed. Yeah, we got lucky. We do like hot springs, but we, a little bit, we threw a dirt at a map. We just wanted to make it happen.
Speaker: Totally. And I'm glad we did. And then, and if you're listening to this too, I would say it might, it is a really good move. Get your feet wet with somewhere outside of Tokyo. And then from a business perspective though, kind of echo what Joey said, getting something in Tokyo, Tokyo holds.
Speaker: It doesn't depreciate. It's a bin appreciating, I think at a slower, kind of decent rate actually. And also the reinforced concrete building. I love concrete buildings. I would love to see if we can get a concrete building someday, but we could potentially get a loan called Sheensay loan. We're going to look into this more, but it sounds like as a foreigner, you might be able to get a 60 % loan to value on a property.
Speaker: The Tokyo property is just a smarter investment. Beppu was kind of us getting our feet wet and getting some experience, but business investment. Yeah. Yeah. Tokyo is really a business investment. All right. We got two exciting prospects lined up now. Maybe we, this is, maybe we start season two of the podcast for this buying our second house in Japan. We have one apartment or Manchon in Tokyo.
Speaker: It's actually in Koreatown. It's, I think we're, it's looking at like a hundred K. We don't have this money yet and we're going to figure it out, but it is what the good thing is it's Airbnb -able. It's a newer building. It looks kind of like a piece of shit, Joey. What are your thoughts on that first one? I mean, it looks, it's probably going to be maybe three times the size of my first room in New York. So let's say 250 square feet.
Speaker: Yeah. We're looking at photos of just like the design of like, I think they're currently operating as a hotel. If we think we have the building correct, which we might not, we're waiting for a Japanese real estate agent to tell us hopefully tonight or tomorrow, but man, the design is terrible, dude. It looks so terrible.
Speaker: Yeah. I mean, this would be essentially like, it seems like this is a three store building currently being used as a hotel. Again, if we have the building, there's a terrible bar at the bottom, terrible bar at the bottom. So, but basically it kind of looks like the rooms are being sold off as condos. So this is essentially a hotel room being sold off as a condo. So quite small. The design was really bad. Like, like the bedroom was tired, like the bedrooms were bad, but
Speaker: You know, the occasion, this is very, very close to Shinjuku. This is our, I would say this is our specialty, taking these shitty places and making them nice. So I look forward to the challenge, but I actually don't particularly look forward to you and me staying in this tiny shitty place in the beginning. I'd rather it be a shitty house, but.
Speaker: I like your spot in Montenegro. I mean, we did it for like a week and a half, but that gets a little crowded. That's what had a view of the ocean though, or the sea. This does not have a view of the sea. But we're in central Tokyo here, so we could go out to coffee shops and stuff. So at least there's that, right?
Speaker: Yeah. The other, the second spot, a lot more exciting. Oh yeah. It's further out where it's, was it not going to know. Yeah. We picked this area because we went to university. Oh, I think it's not Gaya. Asa Gaya names. So somewhere around the two on the Chuo line. Yeah. Oh, Ogi Kubo. That was Ogi Kubo. Asa Gaya. That area close to Nakano, just a little bit west of Nakano.
Speaker: this place is way cooler, three floors building, three story building with the old Taylor on the bottom floor, but it doesn't look like that Taylor has been operational for many years. Basically, this is Akihiko with a small shop on the bottom floor.
Speaker: Pretty cool looks zoned commercial as well, which is so there's two just quick refresher two types of short -term rentals you can do in Japan There's a hotel license Rio can license and then there's the mean paku Airbnb license with the mean pocket You can only rent out for 180 days with the Rio can license you can do the full year This one looks so both of these properties look Rio can a bull Hopefully, yep
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's awesome. The second one's awesome. It definitely carries more risk, but having a storefront, we could have a coffee shop, man. Joey came over to Santa Cruz and we were brewing espresso shots. Like if we could just keep doing that and sell it. And on the second and third floor have Airbnb. I think that's a really, it's got a lot of character and swag versus the first option.
Speaker: It would be way more fun. Both of these are about the same price. But I think that the second one, oh, and we've been calling it Sato Cafe because of the name of the tailor. So if you look at it on Google Maps, it's like Sato Taylor is the name of the shop front. And so we've been calling it Sato San Cafe after our contractor who hurt his leg. Got some good drink names. I don't know if you want to share them, Jerry. Season two, we'll share the drink names.
Speaker: Yeah, I think the big red flag here though is the third floor is not permitted. So we really think that might be a deal breaker. We have some questions out to the city, but it's unregistered third floor, whatever that means. I guess that it's submitted documents to the.
Speaker: government saying they're only going to build two floors, they ended up building three. Is that going to prohibit having a business there? Clearly Sato Taylor was able to have a business there, but maybe that in times of change. And also we're foreigners, not Japanese, so under more scrutiny.
Speaker: It's definitely going to take a lot more effort, but I'm personally way more excited about the second option. Both options are good. I think the first one is a better, like straight investment, cashflow, Airbnb business, but the second one's got a character. I'm going to keep saying that. I like the second one better too. I mean, two concerns. One, if it's not Airbnb -able, I think we got to move on, keep looking.
Speaker: And would it be Airbnb just because of that third floor, you think? Like what if we got rid of the third floor and just made that super? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's another idea. I think the two things that one is its own appropriately and two is the unregistered third floor going to prevent its use as an Airbnb. Those are the two, I think vetoable, uh, things.
Speaker: Man, I would, I mean, also third is it's going to cost a hell of a lot more than the apartment that's already done. So we have to think about fine. You know, kind of looks like holes in the floor. I don't see any water damage from the pictures, but who knows.
Speaker: My, my vote is we take out the third floor. We make it ultra high ceilings. We put some windows in it. It's a smaller space, but location's pretty good. The coffee shop kind of vibe up front could be cool. I think it's, let's see. I mean, it could be off market by tomorrow. Who knows? We're dealing with Tokyo now.
Speaker: Yeah, our friend at Nippon Training International Ziv told us about a service that can investigate properties like this. We think we just sent them a message so we haven't heard back from them yet to understand if this is completely what they do, but hopefully they will be able to investigate properties like this for us and get these questions answered. So we're hoping to pursue that and yeah, basically figure out if we bought this, are we going to be able to Airbnb it?
Speaker: Yep. Oh, geez. Okay. Well, Hey, we're making slow progress. As I look back on our previous deer diary series, like it feels like an eternity's pass. So.
Speaker: Let's do it, Joey. I think we got a lot of exciting things ahead of us. Sato -san, cafe, break a leg, macchiato, is that what you said? I remember I told this story before, but I was making him black coffee every morning because that's what I was drinking. And then one day I asked him how he drinks, how he drinks coffee or orders it. And he was like lots of milk and sugar. And so that's, that's going to be on the menu or something. Maybe the latte is. A lot of milk and sugar latte. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm sorry, Sato son. If you're listening to this, you're, you've been awesome. We hope you a quick recovery, but this cafe cafe, free coffee, free lattes forever at Sato. We actually, you can also come and work on Sato coffee shop if it does become a reality. So cool, man. Well, Hey, it's good seeing you this past week for our offsite. Hopefully see you in Japan next to me.
Speaker: Yeah, that'd be fun. Alright, peace. Alright, see ya.
