Transcript
Speaker: My car insurance bill monthly is more like the month bill is more money than my taxes on my property and my house in Japan. I spend more money for one month of car insurance here than I do for that entire house.
Speaker: Welcome to the buying a house in Japan podcast. Today we have a guest star, but before that, unfortunately, Joey, my co -host not going to be here today. He is out with COVID stay safe and stay healthy. Everyone if it's flu season, but on a lighter note, Dean, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here today.
Speaker: Yeah, thanks, man. And Joey, feel better soon, buddy. I'm really excited to talk to you about this because this has been a long time. All right, so for everyone who's listening, can you give a quick intro on yourself? Where are you from? What do you do? East Coast native moved out to LA.
Speaker: In 2006, I work in the video game industry. There was an opportunity out here that I just couldn't pass up. So I jumped on and came out, did the interview, aced it, and then moved out here. Been out here since then. Haven't gone back to the East Coast at all. Maybe visit once in a while. But so I'm a senior producer in the video game industry. Been doing this for 24, 25 years. I've worked on pretty much every console from the PlayStation 1 to last gen and mobile, free to play. I've pretty much done it all.
Speaker: I also am a musician. I used to be Aphex Twin and Tangerine Dreamish. It was like ethereal garage dance music like drum and bass but it was more on the garage side. I stopped that in 2015. I used to be under the name Pimp X and now I started again as Yeah, because I didn't know what to call myself. So I'm just like, you know what, impacts is fine. People don't need to know who I am anyway. And now I'm Giza, G -E -E -Z -A -H, because I'm old. Okay. And I'm back and making music. I'm making drum and bass again. And I got a bunch of that. I also have a AI Korean K -pop band and an old AI death metal band. And we could talk about that later if you want. Okay. Yeah. And that's me in a nutshell, man. Right on. How are things in LA? I know it's a tough time. House is safe. What's the situation on the ground?
Speaker: We were close to, I don't want to say close to losing the house, but if you're familiar with Los Angeles at all, we're in a Sherman Oaks area. Ventura Boulevard is like one of the main boulevards. So they had evacuated the one side. We're on the other side. We're like a block away from the other side.
Speaker: they didn't evacuate that side, they put us in red flag wanting. But when you went up to the top of the street, and you look over a bunch of houses, the mountains that were like maybe three or four miles away, they were on fire at a war of the world's man when Tom Cruise is like, coming up the side with his kid, and he sees the whole mountain on fire. And then the Jeep comes rolling down. Yeah, that's pretty much what it was like sands Jeep.
Speaker: And I'm like, shit, we got to get out of here, man. This is not good. We luckily, thank God for these amazing firefighters. And I mean that sincerely, like, they were just amazing. They did a great job. They were persevering just pushing through it. And they stopped that fire from hitting Encino Sherman Oaks, that whole area, which is great. But my thought was honestly, man, like it was like,
Speaker: I said to my girl, if the house burns down, I'm taking the clothes that I just packed and I'm going to the airport and I'm going home. that That's great. I sympathize with that if shit really hits the fan in the States or something or vice versa. we it's It's great. A great feeling to know you have a house in another country, although you've had your share of natural disasters and storms and and stuff and in both regions, but we'll get to that soon.
Speaker: What kind of really got you interested in Japan initially? It was multiple, I got hit from all sides. So my mom, when I was a kid, we used to watch in New York, we used to watch something called Million Million Dollar Movie, which was on channel nine out there. And it was every Saturday. And usually without question, it was either a Hammer film, like Frankenstein, Dracula, whatever. Or it was a Godzilla film.
Speaker: And when it was Godzilla, I fell in love with Godzilla instantly, obviously kid Godzilla was my hero still is to this day. You know what I mean? Which is weird to say, but it's true. um But yeah, she turned me on to it. Then my dad turned me on to it because he he was stationed out there. and I think 64 so it was that and then it was this kid Takaharu who moved in across the street from us in the town I lived in he was like ah three years younger than me Japanese family I was completely ah blown away by them because the house was just different and their their custom was different and everything was different the food was different but I loved it and I loved his persona like he was a calm kid and he was a really good kid
Speaker: And his sister was really cool and his mom and dad were really cool. And I was like, man, these people are great. I want to be like them. I want to go to Japan. And that's what triggered it. And then of course, working at Majesco when they first sent me there in 2004 to go to work on some games out there, I instantly fell in love with it. Hori -san was our guy on the ground there and he took me out and took me out. We got shit face. Oh my God. We got shit face.
Speaker: Dude, he was like 60 when I was 30. He's got to be dead now. I don't know. But he was 60 then. And we would go out to one, two o 'clock in the morning and drink, get hammered. And then the next day, he'd be at my hotel knocking at seven o 'clock. Oh, man. Dude, press looking like a million dollars. Oh, let's go, Dean, son. Let's go. And I'd be like, dude, are you insane? I'm still drunk. Like, I can't do this. Salarmen are animals.
Speaker: Yo, for real. And he, so all that stuff built up to it. But Orison, he sold me when he took me around and showed me everything. I was like, I need to be here. I want to live here. So this has been, like we said in the beginning, a long time coming, right? It has literally been since 2006 that I wanted to live in Japan. But I think the last 12 years especially was like, I need to buy a house in Japan. How do I get a house in Japan?
Speaker: Yeah, I know we talked about it. So 12 years, it was boiling up a little bit. What really inspires you to be like, okay, let's let's shoot the shot. Let's start figuring out how to buy my girlfriend. Yeah, and not my ex wife. My ex wife was against it. I thought it was a waste of money and a waste of time. But my my girlfriend
Speaker: she was just like, if this is something you really want, I support you. I'm not going to give you money towards it because I don't want to live in Japan, but I support you, but you got to like shit or get off the pot, man. You got to stop talking about it and just do it. yeah And that was it. And then I started looking at Akias and I'm just going to segue right into it, man. I started looking at Akias and I saw your website And I was like, holy shit, it not only is it like legible, like an understand what's going on here, but it's an English because the most Japanese websites, man, they look like they're from like the 80s. It's tough, man. information overload It just hits you all at once. yeah But there's a reason for that. it And I'm not going to get into it. There's a psychological reason for that. but
Speaker: Your website was like a ah Western website. like i can I could go through it. And you know even though it was still early, I still could maneuver through it and figure shit out. And I love the interactive map where I can go anywhere and I could find what I was looking for. And i so I did that. And I found a place that I don't think I even talked to you guys about. I found a place that was it was built inside a temple area.
Speaker: It was something like 15 bedrooms. It was like 3200 square feet. Yeah, it was dude. It was huge. Yeah. And it was a ton of land. and Like I said, it was built inside a temple area. So it was walled off from the rest of the ah world, man. Yeah, they wanted $6 ,000 for it. And it was in Niigata. And I was like, Oh my god, and I showed my girl, and she was like, Holy shit, can you get that? And I'm like, I'm gonna try. we but It was old school, like old school Shogun looking house and it was a beautiful house.
Speaker: It lasted on your site for three days, three days later, when I was about to hit you guys up. Yeah, it was gone already. And I was like, God damn it. We actually offline, I'll send you this listing. We just got it's a samurai compound, old samurai compound that turned into samurai museum that someone wants to sell us. So I'll send it over to you. See if maybe this is something you're interested in. and still I do want to buy another house.
Speaker: Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the house you got. And then we'll go about the buying process after here. We were looking on our site. You found a couple. We connected you with Dio, which we'll talk about in a little bit, but what, tell us about the property you found. What stood out. Can you tell us details about the property you ended up getting?
Speaker: So ah ah I didn't know what I was doing. I nobody knows what they're doing. I think that's true. But this was like, I really didn't know what I was doing. And I i was like, I want to buy a house in Asakusa. I want to buy it there because I love that part of Tokyo. And I was being unrealistic because everything that's down there was like 80, 90, 100, 200 ,000. It's just out of my it's out of my range. And it's not something if I'm not there full time, I'm not spending that kind of money. I found this property on your site and i I knew nothing about the town. I knew nothing about site because I've been there once, but it was only site from a city. This was an hour north. This was in Yoda city. So I knew nothing about Yoda city at all. But what what attracted me to it was the house didn't look beat up. It looked like it was moving ready. And it was it looked like on Google maps, it looked like it was in a really good area. It was five minutes from a train station. So these are like, I'm going to mix this little statement up a bit. If you're looking for a house,
Speaker: Find where the closest train station is. If it's 15 minutes or less walk, it's great. Find convenience stores, specifically 7 -Eleven, because of the ATM. Because if you're a Westerner, ATM, the fees are are nominal there, and the transfer transfer rate, whatever they call it, the exchange rate, is better at 7 -Eleven than it is at the airport or at banks. And then find like a grocery store within five or 10 minute walk, and then restaurants within five, 10 minute walk. So that was my checklist, right? I i built this document that I actually shared in the video that I made, a part one video of buying this place. I shared it in my YouTube comments so people can use it.
Speaker: and Joe and I used it and it was a great document for us to use because I'd list all the properties I was looking at, I'd list how big they were, square footage, I'd list how far they were from a train station and what the name of the train station was and then I'd list what convenience stores would buy it, how far from restaurants, how far from the train station again, like I said, what kind of utilities and then I would list also list for me where the where's the nearest Don Quixote or Hardoff because those two places I love.
Speaker: And then we measured it. We literally whittled everything down from that. This Yoda house checked off all those boxes. Five minutes to a giant supermarket, five minutes to a train station, 15 restaurants within a walking distance. So it was perfect, man. But again, okay, I was buying blind because I'm like, I don't know this town. What if I get there? And they're all like, What are you doing here, man? Guys, you go home. Because it happens. It does happen.
Speaker: Right on. I'll ask you a question about that in a second. but ki So how much was the house and like roughly how big is the lot or what's the size of the house? So the lot of land is 3200 square feet.
Speaker: Whoa, pretty big. Yeah, it's big. Yeah. And the house is 1000 square feet. It's two floors and is five rooms is two. So there's two bedrooms upstairs, but we turned it into one bedroom. And then there's the room there's the tea room downstairs, the kitchen, the toilet, the bath bathroom area, my girls art room and then the TV room.
Speaker: yeah got the um and smart and we go yeah yeah yeah course and She's a very good artist. And so I want her to like, when she's out there to just create, and it's got a cute little Japanese garden in the front, all in, we paid less than you would pay for a Tesla or a Prius out here. We paid with taxes and everything. I i think I paid 28, nine.
Speaker: Okay, for the entire house. Now, the funny part is when I pinged you guys, it was 24 ,000. But then the yeah, the Bank of Japan raised the interest rates and the yen got really strong. So it knocked it up to 26 or 27 or no, it was 26. And I was just like, shit, man, I need to move. and ah So we moved.
Speaker: Yeah. How much would a house like this cost in your neighborhood in l LA? Like I like to draw that comparison for in California, like what would this cost? If you're just flop it up and drop it in LA.
Speaker: This house, there's a house that is the same size, two blocks away from us. And it's going for $750 ,000 right now. Okay. And there are prospective buyers, there are people that are interested in buying it. And the worst part is it's in a cul -de -sac that's right next to the highway. So the backyard, it has those highway sound walls behind it. Oh, yeah, you could still hear like trucks at night and stuff like that. Whereas where we live, you hear the train barely. And that's all you hear. And you hear it once every couple hours.
Speaker: Cool. Less than a Tesla, less than a Prius. yeah That's a steal. Even though, yeah yeah, I know we'll look back. Like timing was weird. I remember that day when the stock market crashed and we got messages from you were like, Oh no, like but I was freaking out. I was freaking out for you too. We're like, Oh no, is it going to keep going down? Is it going to go up? and I think, ah what do they call that? Black Monday or something like that. yeah But all right, let's jump into the purchase process. Thank you for being one of the early folks with us here. Again, me and Joey since then have actually modified the spreadsheet you made. We've now give it to everyone almost. So thank you for pioneering that. We've also added in distance to train station. Combinis are coming up soon. So a lot of the things you've mentioned, we're taking feedback, but want to hear about your experience. I think we started this process. When did we start this September?
Speaker: Maybe i I found the house in August and we started like the last week of August. Last week of August. Talk us through the process. Again, it was a learning process for us. So I know we there's areas of improvement for us that we've discussed. But how was the process? How was working it with a deal? One of our Accumart direct agents? He's a god. He's like,
Speaker: I told him four times when we were working together, I'm like, dude, I really want to take you out to dinner when we get out there to see the house for the first time. I feel like I should not only because you busted your ass for me, but because you're just an amazing person yeah and I couldn't have done any of this without you. And it's the truth, man. like He's a monster. He just doesn't stop man. He I would email him because there's a difference right right now. It's 9 30 in the morning. We're we're recording this at 430 la time 9 30 in the morning in Tokyo. So I would hit him up when I wake up in the morning because he'd write me overnight at 7am when I'm just you know, done with the stuff I have to start my job.
Speaker: And he would respond and it's that's who in the morning over there or something like that. you know and he's respond now now He won't do that all the time. I don't want people to think this guy's an animal. He's gonna work for me like that. I think it's because things were still early. And I was one of the first people. for it Yeah. But, but dude, he's fantastic. You guys You and Joey talked to me on a call it was an intro call you felt me out to make sure you like I was the the right kind of person, which by the way, I think it's the way you should do it because there there are people that are going to just buy the property rip it apart and then Airbnb it or do something else with it or knock it down and And this is like the Japanese side of me, even though I'm not Japanese, I like to pretend that I am the Japanese side of me that that is going to say this, like, it's important because people that live in those towns that you're buying that house, they may not want you to Airbnb that house, because you're putting them out. And that's like the thing out there. it's It's a community, everything is a community. And so you have to be mindful of that when you're selling somebody a house there or you're looking to buy a house there. Hey, if I make this an Airbnb, I'm probably going to piss off all these people because they want it quiet. They don't want tourists over here. They want it to be mellow. And so like you guys felt me out. You realize that I wanted the house for us, which I do. I'm not renting it to anybody. It's for us. And we moved on and you introduced me to Dio.
Speaker: And then Joe basically started talking to me about what I was looking for, what I was thinking, where I was thinking. He told me where he lived in Japan. And he told me like, this is how it's going to be. If I have to get around and I'm like, all right, cool. And there were certain fees for like, when you had to go all the way up to site them for me. And I'm like, you know what? Deserved. You earned it. You're doing this for me. I don't have a problem paying for anything as long as it's not crazy. I put that template together then that the checklist with all the properties on it. Cause I was like, we were going back and forth via email. I'm like, this isn't fast enough. totally We're going to use properties this way. yeah So he said to me, make a list of every property you want to see and send it to me. And when he said that, that's when I built this spreadsheet because I'm like, you know what? That's the way to do this, man. Like I'll give him 50 and if he comes back with five, win, right? Because it's, do I want all 50? Sure.
Speaker: But I could only get one. But if you at least get to be one of those 50, I'm still winning because it's one of the ones I wanted. And that was the key thing. And then once we went through it, he checked all the places he looked. Now he didn't physically check, but he looked into it, talked to the realtors. He did physically check some places he was close to. And he gave me his honest opinion. Again, why I love this guy. He was just dead honest. Hey, man, I wouldn't buy this house. But if you want it, and I'm like, fuck, if you're not getting okay Why would I buy? We went through this a couple times. And then finally, the geode house, when he was like, the buyer is willing to sell it to you. That was the thing too, man. so Some places did not want to sell to me because I was a Westerner. And you're gonna run into that. But this guy was like, Yeah, I don't care if he's got cash, I'll sell it to him. And Joe's like, Yeah, he's got cash. And the guy was like sold. And the process, like,
Speaker: there wasn't a moment, no, that's a lie. There was only two moments where I was worried about what was going on. And that was when there was a little bit of silence because we were trying to figure things out. And I had thought that I was like, if I'm very honest, I thought that even though I know I wasn't, but I thought this at the time, that I was like, a unwieldy,
Speaker: like customer that you guys had. And you were like, this guy's crazy. We can't deal with him anymore. No, because I wasn't. It's not yet. It's we're all strangers communicating online. So it's hard to develop that trust. I hear you. And then that was that. And the second thing was like, this was brand new, just brand new for you guys, brand new for me. And I had just seen something on Netflix about these people. Oh, Tokyo Swindlers. Yeah, Tokyo Swindlers, man. So you know it. So and I saw that I'm like, I'm just gonna be real. I'm like, motherfucker, if these guys.
Speaker: But then like like the reality of it is you're here in California, Joey's in Canada, Joe's and in and Osaka. All your information is easily accessible online. You're not, you guys are the most upfront and transparent people I have worked with to find a house in Japan.
Speaker: And I mean that sincerely, man. And this is why I tell everybody that's looking for a house to go to you guys. You're going to get dicked around by everybody else. You're going to get hit with a bunch of fees that they didn't tell you about upfront. These guys are very transparent. And they will hold your hand and walk through this with you because they know how scary it is.
Speaker: Yep. Yep. Thank you for the good words there again. Appreciate it. We were learning along with you. There were some ups and downs where, Oh, shit, the but exchange rate. And, you know, let's check this out. Let's see what we can do. Testament to do it himself. He's not your usual agent. He's more of the hot, he's a hustler. A lot of agents take Wednesdays and Thursdays off. It doesn't seem to take any days off. I've told him like, yo, you got a newborn kid, you got to slow it down. Don't worry. I can handle them. Okay. Deal.
Speaker: But anyways, kids fine, man. He's not even three yet. yeah Exactly. I'm like, you got to spend more time anyways. he's He's a hustler. He's still hungry for it. But curious, what were some of the like top challenges? I know. So money transfer timing was tough. And since that then, actually we've converted folks to wise. OFX is a little bit slower. Things got a little clunky with them. Wise upgraded their services. But what were some of the challenges you faced?
Speaker: the transfer of money, yeah because OFX wasn't really clear about a couple things. And yeah it made it seem like he was getting more than he was actually getting. So in the end, when I closed, he said, hey, you still owe me a couple of grand, I was like, what? And then he showed me and I was pissed because I didn't know that and I was just like, I was like, I can't, I got to take care of this guy. You know what I mean? Yeah. So there was that there was not not being able to do a walk through the house, who believe it or not was bothersome, because it's like you're buying the property. But again, this is what yo is a rock star. Because I expressed to him how concerned I am about it. And he's I'll go. So he went up there one day, and he took his camera and he filmed it for me. And he called me on zoom. And he did a walkthrough with the camera. And I'm like,
Speaker: This guy is awesome, man. Like you can't ask more than, and I didn't say, Hey, do this. He offered to do it and did it without bitching. Cause again, Osaka, the Saitama, that's not a 20 minute trip. That's like a three hour ride. So I was really, really happy that he did that. And then he took more pictures for me. And then we had another phone call before the signing. The contract stuff was a little scary. Yeah.
Speaker: That was also scary because the guy that they were working with on the seller side has never worked with Westerners before. Yeah, he didn't know what to do. So everything just stopped. Yeah. And I was like, I just lost this house, man. It's gone. You know what I mean? So I freaked out thinking that I'm not going to be able to get it. It's just going to be a bad thing going on. And I lost a deposit or whatever. But you'll made it happen. Go again, he contacted everybody. He was the mediator. He was my power of attorney. He did everything.
Speaker: Yeah, I was a guy was a monster. So I would say the hardest thing was the transfers. Yeah, I remember actually on the specifically on the contract spot and and something we've also learned we started brute forcing our bilingual foreign Chihoshoshi, the guy who does the transfer versus letting a stellar dictate because a lot of those guys have never worked with foreigners, they don't know what documents they need.
Speaker: I remember when you were going to the contract phase, like, there was some issue with like, maybe a missing passport, or there was some document they were missing her and something was notarizing correctly. Huh? It was it was the the documentation to for the seller for the sellers was a judicial Scrivener. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: So they were like, hey, we can't move forward until you get this stuff from him. So deal hit me up is you could you can mail it. It's gonna take a while and I'm like, I'll FedEx it to you next day. So I went and I paid 90 bucks to FedEx this document next day. Because I'm like, I'm getting this house, man. If I got to fly out there, I'm getting this house. Let's go.
Speaker: Yeah, but FedEx lost it. They went to the wrong address. The wrong address. I remember that. I reached out to Joe. I'm like, Yo, man, they said you got it. I don't have anything. And I'm like, I remember that email. I was like, you know, I was like pinging you on the side. Yo, did you really not get this or what's happening? And so they lost it. That's what happened. They brought it to the wrong address. Oh, man. So they had to bring it to the right address. He got it two days later, thankfully, because I raised the stink with FedEx. And he got it. And we were both like, Oh, thank God. Yeah. Uh, but then from that point, man, like smooth sailing. So you told me something when we first started talking about this, I said, I said, it was August. I said, I want to do this. So before I go to Japan in December, everything's done and I could just roll into the house. And you were like, that is ambitious. Cause it's going to take at least six months to close. Yeah. And then we closed in October.
Speaker: yeah yeah And like the first week and I was just like, that is amazing. So again, this shows how amazing you guys are. You helped boost this thing around so fast. yeah And Joe was such a beast that we closed in four weeks. Like four weeks after we were like the house is yours, which was September, we closed.
Speaker: And then we started getting the exterminator in the interior designer in the cleaning crew in they set things up they checked out the house. Everything was golden and then I literally rolled in December 21 last year 10pm rolled into the house. I want to hear about this one in a second Dean.
Speaker: Uh, I think, uh, yeah, no, I think because you were first clients, we were a little bit more cautious. Our first property took us six months and we learned a lot there, but I'm glad it seems like we got it close to three months, two and a half months from start to finish, which was awesome. Yeah. And kudos to, to do navigating that there since then we've actually leveled up a lot of stuff. So I'm excited. If you want to go for that second house, we have our shit together a little bit more.
Speaker: But Dean, let's hear about the first impression. So 10 PM, this seems to be the classic thing, like where everyone's excited, they're tired, they travel and they're like, I want to see the house right now. Can you paint the scene? but What happened?
Speaker: These two dudes, Joey and Take were like, you should just get a hotel room, dude. Just get a hotel room and you'll go the next day. It's it's not going to be ready. And I'm like, no, we're going to get out. It's the advice we give everyone, but we didn't take it ourselves at any time. We're like, yeah, we're going to go check it out. I watched your video when you guys unpacked all that Amazon shit. And I was like, that's going to be me. I don't care. But then you'll found an interior designer. And she was like, look, for a thousand bucks, I'll pick out all that stuff for you and set it all up. And I'm like, done. And she didn't even pick out everything because there was a certain point we were like, we want to pick that out ourselves in person. So we're going to do that. You just do a couple of things. So we, we land, we take the two hour trip because the guy drove slow to go to city and he couldn't find the place because it's so dark. Addresses are hard too, right? Yeah, the address is hard. And so he brings us to this parking lot is I think this is it. no and I look at him. I'm like, this is definitely not it, bro. We don't live in the parking lot.
Speaker: I didn't even think that I was thinking like, it's around here. He just doesn't know where it is. Yeah. So I'm looking on Google Maps. I'm like, yeah, you're like three blocks away, bro. So we went around, we had to go around because I don't know if you saw the house in video, whatever, but our house is a it's a pathway. Yeah, I saw it's a path that leads to the houses literally surrounded by other houses. So you can't even see it from the street, which is awesome.
Speaker: You know, we finally find the path. And it's 10 o 'clock and we're bringing stuff in and it's there's no light so we we're tripping over rocks and shit. The guy's helping us because again, Japan, it's awesome. And we open up the door. So first, oh, yeah, first things first, I go to the lockbox, I get the like the key. We go to the door.
Speaker: And i get I put the key in and I'm like, the key's not working. it's so no yeah And it's freezing out, man. It's 20 degrees out. This actually always happens. We've actually had a couple clients. The first like key that is not working or like the the locks are different or something, right? like's It's not working.
Speaker: And I'm like, it's not working shit. And then Laura, my girls, let me try. And and she tries and she's, it's it's like, it's stuck. And I swear to you, I'm like, motherfucker, tell me we're stuck here in the middle of the way. It's gone, right? like We're sleeping on the porch tonight, man. Or I'm breaking a window or something's happening. But then all the windows are shuttered. So I can't even break a window because they're covered with steel.
Speaker: So we figured out how to get the lock open, we got to push the door forward a little bit and then open it that way. And we get inside and the first thing is we turn on the lights and it's like dimly lit. And it's got that shitty fluorescent lighting. And it's like a kind of a bad huh? Yeah, like the lighting. You can have a whole podcast with Laura telling you how bad she hates the lighting. yeah It's hilarious. And so it does a little bit of a mildewy smell. And we're like, the house hasn't been really aired out in two months. But but but it's freezing in the house. That's the first thing we know. Abs it's colder in the house than it is outside. It's weird. It's weird. It's Yeah, I like that with not insulated houses.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, the houses are not insulated in Japan. And there's a reason for that. And we can talk about that too. So we like we're exhausted, man. So we look and we see a couple of things that they laid out the the entertainment center, of the couch, we're like, cool, there's stuff here. We just leave the bags where they are. And we go upstairs because they built our bed. And we just climb into bed and we sleep. Oh, that's so nice. Wow. We slept but it was like horrible sleep because we have a memory foam mattress. Because it was so cold. And memory foam was like
Speaker: so it was like a rock so we we did that and the next morning when we woke up we did a tour of the house and were pleasantly surprised but it was exactly how Gil said it was when he was walking through it exactly there's a soft floor in the bathroom where the washing machine was because there was a leak It's not terrible, but it needs to be replaced. He called that out before I paid for anything. He told me about the tatami mats that they're a little old. like Everything he said the shoji screens need to be replaced. Everything he said was on point. There was not anything different. So we knew. And and that's the punch line here, right? Like, we knew what we had. But when we saw it in the morning, that confirmed, again, how honest and transparent you guys are because he told us everything.
Speaker: right on i think the dead giveaway for me, by the way, was when he was walking through the house with me. And he said, I go, So what do you think, man? Is this cool house or am I wasting my time? And he stopped his I would buy this house and I'm like, Okay, well,
Speaker: but ah That house is mine, son. He was great. So we ordered with the TV and we got all this stuff. Got an arcade game, of course, because I had had to. What game? I got a Sega Blast City arcade. So the Blast City can hold any JAMA arcade cartridge, Capcom games, Neo Geo games. go Hold all those.
Speaker: important. and Did you get that before you got there? Or? ah Yeah, I bought it. from so to Check this out. There was a guy that sells arcade Japanese arcade games on one of the forums on Discord that I go to. And he's in Saitama. Well, which I didn't know which it was a trip because I'm like, Oh, man, I don't want to I don't want to ship this to the United States because of three grand. I want to keep it at my house in Japan. Could you deliver it?
Speaker: And his gal, I could deliver it. Where are you? And I say, go to city and his holy shit. We're like 20 minutes away. Oh, right on. You can just come to our warehouse and see what we have and pick out your own cabin. I'm like, I would love to check. Yeah. Yeah. Any store kind of thing. Yeah, we for real. Yeah, they delivered it. And because the houses in Japan are great. ah You literally just have to open up one of the main windows because they're so huge. Just roll that window open and pick up the arcade game and bring it in. Does he have to go through the front door?
Speaker: Nice. Convenient. Oh, super convenient. but That's great to hear that expectation meant reality. It doesn't always happen like that for anyone listening to this. Our first house, we were the opposite. we We got in at 10 PM. We didn't use the Dean pro tip and how we didn't have an interior designer. We walked into it raw. I would say, and we were like, Oh no, did we make a mistake? So glad you did the preempting, getting it ready.
Speaker: if If I may, we had that discussion, Joey and I and Joey was like, Look, man, like, just go check out the house, but stay in a hotel and work your way up to stuff. And I was like, No, not if we're gonna do this, the minute I close, I'm gonna talk to Joe about getting somebody there to like an exterminator because the house has been vacant for a while, make sure everything's cool, then a landscaper, and then an interior designer because I want things set up so we could just roll in. I don't want to be building shit.
Speaker: the the first four days that I'm there. I just want to be there. Smart, smart man. Where Joey and I are always like, sweating or packing things like throwing away cardboard boxes. I did that it did a lot of that yeah cardboard stuff. But okay, so what are your plans with this property? You're using this vacation home? When are you going back next? What's your vision with this spot? So I eventually want it to be my residence, but it's going to be hard to pull that off.
Speaker: Because I'm California guy, I'm not a Japanese citizen. And getting a citizenship is a long process. So I'm looking at right now, like anywhere from 30 to 90 days. And like in increments of that maybe six month digital nomad visa. It's hard because my girls here And we have a great relationship and I would love for her to be with me, but because of her job and what she does, she's got, she's a director. She's got to be on site with people. She's got to help people. ah So she cannot be remote, unfortunately.
Speaker: But it was nice to see just a side trail for a second. It was nice to see how ah she fell in love with the house. ah i was gonna ask and Yeah, she didn't want to leave when we and so we've been to Japan a couple times together. I've been there many times but she's been there a couple times with me. And every time she's I'm ready to go home this time she's I don't want to go home. I want to stay here. Good sign. Good sign. Really good sign. For now, I go back in April, I'm there for a month. I try to go back in June, stay for another month. I go back in September, stay for another month. And then I'm going back in December. And probably only for 14 days because I want to spend Christmas with my girl and my family. But eventually, yeah, six months. We're not renting it out to people. okay That's just a big no. Friends and family, if they want to stay there, because they want to go to Japan,
Speaker: we'll just let them stay there. But it's going to be like really selective. I want to make sure that because and that sounds shitty, but I'll explain why. There's a lot of rules with throwing out the garbage as a great example. Yep, absolutely.
Speaker: And you got to make sure that the person's in that house is following those rules. Yeah, because all hell will come down on you by the people that live by you will track you down. um the punch you yeah and Yeah, they will. They will because it happened to us when we were out there. because I don't know what I was doing. And Joe gave me paperwork, but I still didn't Cause there was no signage. So I'm like, I don't know where this goes. So I put stuff in the wrong spot. And the next day when I went out to throw out more garbage, one of my neighbors corrected me and I was like, all right, cool. And he wasn't a jerk about it. He was just like, Hey, you can't put that there. That's not, that's for bottles. That's not for cardboard. Don't put that there. They will leave it there. And I'm like, all right, cool. I'm sorry. And ah how you have to cut up cardboard. We can talk about that. all of the show Brutal. Brutal.
Speaker: um So I guess, how how are the neighbor interactions? Are you the only foreigner around? Did you start talking to neighbors? what You paint the scene on the neighborhood a little bit. So we've only met two, one, one that corrected me on the garbage. He's on the corner. And then there's Miki -san who is around the corner. And it was funny because we weren't loading the truck the truck that we rented with furniture and Miki -san's walking her dog and there's another old lady with her and they're like talking and they're looking at me and they're talking. and I'm a big dude so they're looking at this big white guy, something's wrong. you here yeah oh is there anything Laura's in the car so they can't see her because she's tiny so you like they can't even see her doing her thing and so I noticed that they keep clocking me and I'm just like every time I come back in from outside like they're looking at me on the street and the Miki -san won't leave that area with her dog, she's just doing circles.
Speaker: And they're small scoping. Yeah. I'm like, this lady's scoping us, man. So I walked up to her and I'm like, Hey, how you doing? My name's Dean. And my worst Japanese, cause my Japanese isn't great. Still better than, you know, it's still good to try. Right.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I said, Good morning to her. My name is Dean. We just moved in. And she lit up. She was just like, Oh, you're living here. And I'm like, Yeah, we bought this house. And then so now I start using Google Translate because as far as I can go, because she's talking about storm. I don't know what you're saying to me. I'm sorry. I just keep going. What kind of my son? What kind of a son?
Speaker: My, my Samsung phone has this app that you could talk to each other and it's two windows. yeah And one it says her in one faces me, whatever she says, comes into English, whenever I say it goes into Japanese, it's really great. So I'm using that with her. And we're having this whole conversation. And she's who are you here with? I said, I'm here with my wife. And because if I said, girl and she wouldn't head up you put down the plane yeah Oh, awesome. Your wife is with you. I'm like, Yeah, she's so what are you doing with the property? I said, we're we're gonna live here. This is our house.
Speaker: And that's when she got really happy. So you're our neighbor now. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm your neighbor. and And I said to her, Look, if we ever do something that isn't the right way, knock on the door and tell me because we don't want to be those neighbors. We want to be great neighbors here. Good for you. Yeah. And she lit up even more. And she was super happy to see me. And she was like, Oh, Dean's on Dean's side, I'll talk to you soon, blah, blah, blah. And that's it. So I can't wait to see Mickey's on because she's awesome. There's celebrity now. Any other foreigners in that area? oh Nope. Okay. Nope. yeah Love it.
Speaker: You're the lone lone foreigner. Here's the thing. Don't move to go to city folks. It's horrible. It's not don't do it. <unk>s It's a terrible place. It's you got friendly and really warm and giving. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, I think you you did the right move. Yeah, just trying to speak Japanese even doing your best. I think they really appreciate it. Curious like average age of the neighborhood like 70. What would you put it at?
Speaker: So Miki -san is the youngest person there and I think she's 50. She looks like she's in her 30s, but I think she's 50. But everybody else was like in their 60s, 70s, like they're old. Yeah. The aging demographic problem is like crazy. Once you leave Tokyo and you really go to those neighborhoods, Saitan was at least closer to Tokyo, so it has probably a little younger. But did you see a lot of other Akiyas or abandoned homes in the neighborhood? or So the two houses that are next to ours look like they should be abandoned, but people live in them.
Speaker: It's crazy, right? They're like bored. And then an old lady pops out like what you do. We thought for sure that this house was gonna get demolished because it's just a shithole. It's just broken. It's all broken down, man. Everything's broken on it. yeah And there's junk everywhere. The guy's got six broken down cars in front of his house. So we're like, Oh, this must be like a house that's dessert. Another Ikea. But and then she goes out, talk to Taki. Maybe we can get a 500 bucks. We'll just knock it down and we'll have a big a land of property. Yeah.
Speaker: And then we see the guy walk out and I'm like, would you look at that? He lives there. Great. That's happened to us a couple of times. We were like, we're sure that's abandoned and an old lady walks out after two months. for Oh my goodness. Someone's been living in there. How are you living there? Yeah. There's two houses that look like they really shouldn't be occupied, but they are occupied. But then the rest of the houses by us are in very good shape. A couple of them are gorgeous actually on the street.
Speaker: So we're trying to get our house without changing too much because we want to keep the original as much as we can. We want to get it on that level of gorgeous. So when people see it again, man, it's that whole like you're allowing us to buy a house in your country kind of thing. And just though I look at it, nobody else has to look at it this way, but it's a respect thing.
Speaker: Yeah, I want to show you I'm not that ugly American that's going to come in and tacky up the house and knock shit down and change everything and be loud. We're going to be quiet. We're going to follow everything that you guys do. We're going to be like we born and raised there. Because the last thing we want to do is get people's eyes on us. We just want to blend in. And that's the key I think to anybody that's buying an Ikea.
Speaker: blend in, don't be that asshole that wants people to know that they're there because they don't care, man. It's not America. It's not Great Britain. They don't care. Yeah, yep. And I remember our our consultation then that really stood out. You know, I think we really try to find people that kind of embody that spirit you have of Hey, we're we're coming into another culture. We're not bringing our culture to you. And I think that's really important. And I'm glad you highlighted that.
Speaker: Oh, yeah, yeah. We were over mindful about it while we were out there. yeah And I am every time I am out there again, dude. I'm a guest. Yeah, like even if I had citizenship status, it's not my original home. So I have to follow the culture and follow the way things are there. I'm not about even here like in America, a little bit more loose because I've been living my life. I don know how it is.
Speaker: but I still follow the rules in the town. I don't do whatever I want. It's a courtesy thing. I don't know. It's just, it's a weird, it's just a weird dynamic. You go to Japan for, we went for 10 days this time and you come back and as soon as you come back, it is like a bucket of cold water growing right in your face. Tell me I'm wrong, man. Seriously. I hear the cost of living. I feel like I save more money being in Japan versus California. Like off oil leg how do you feel about that?
Speaker: I spent $120 on groceries today. It was two bags of groceries. It was nothing insane in it, except for a bottle of sake, which was $26, which by the way, you can get a Don Quixote for 13. Just put it out there. The same amount of groceries that I bought, literally the same amount and most of the same shit, right? I bought at the grocery store in Japan and it cost me $30 US. yeah It's crazy, right? I like um yeah I talked to my fiance a lot about this just hey, cost of living here, like insurance or whatever. It's like insurance. it up So yeah, we'll talk about it. We could talk about insurance and this. Here's the thing to help people that are listening. So my car insurance bill monthly
Speaker: is more like the month bill is more money than my taxes on my property and my house in Japan. I spend more money for one month of car insurance here than I do for that entire house. I dropped the cost of living difference. if If you can work remotely to let's see if you can get your girlfriend a remote job. And i think it's like crazy how much you can save there.
Speaker: you know, I know when it's called quality life is quite high. But Dean, with a couple minutes left, what are some pieces of advice you give to someone who's either considering by Nokia or in the process, what would you tell yourself six months ago, or even like 10 years ago, when you were 12 years ago, when you started thinking about this? Don't don't try to look for a place in Tokyo, the $6 ,000 homes that are in Tokyo are pretty much gone. And most of them that are still there are absolute shitholes, you spend more money fixing it. Yeah, the second thing would be like,
Speaker: branch out, man. Like I said, Gouda City, they knew nothing about it. Super happy there. I love Gouda City. I love where we live. It's an awesome little place. So try to find something that's new. Definitely download that template. If you don't have it, we can make it available. Yep. We give it to our Akimar direct customers, actually some modification of it, but Dean, yeah, I feel good in your YouTube. Yeah, it's in my YouTube. We'll link your YouTube in the show notes too.
Speaker: But use that because it's going to help you get organized. And that's the biggest key thing is get organized and stay organized. Don't go to don't go to deal or wherever else you're going to deal with that they hook you up with and have just diarrhea of the mouth on what you want. Know what you want. Know how much you want to spend. Know how many rooms you want in the place. And the key thing is 15 minutes or less walking distance to a train station. That is a key thing is a lot of houses don't have parking spots. Yep. So you can't get a car. You know, we rented a car, but we parked it at the train station and paid 300 yen. Yeah, we paid 300 yen a day to keep it at the train station. Not that bad though. Two bucks a day. It's not bad because like here in LA, it would be 50 bucks. yeah okay you don't you put um ah Yeah. And then I guess the other thing to really think about is why do you want this house? For me, it was because I've had a passion and love for Japan for almost 20 years now. And it was just something, I just feel more at home when I'm there. I feel like more me when I'm there. If you want a house because you want to rent it.
Speaker: get a house in Tokyo or consider something else, go in with people to get an Airbnb in Tokyo, because doing it in a small town or in a smaller city, it's not going to go well. And you're going to piss people off. And it's just try not to be those people, man. Let's try to be better in 2025. Right on. Great advice, Dean. Very last question. When are you buying your next document? What's next? Are you trying to? It's a drug, right? You get your want first. What's happening next? Where are you looking?
Speaker: I am looking in Asakusa funny enough, but it's still too expensive. Yeah, I'm looking in Sendai and I'm looking so in between Yokohama and Hakone. There's a couple of like beach little towns that are coming. Yeah, I'm looking there. I actually found a house that was like 60 grand there. Okay, but it was on top of a mountain overlooking the ocean and it it was moving ready man. There's nothing wrong with it. It's 10 years old. So I was looking at that right now.
Speaker: the so right now it's really more let's fix the things that are wrong with the house in gyoza city the soft floor i want to replace the cabinets in the kitchen because they're not what i want i want to replace the tile in the bathroom because i want it more modern replace the tatami mats upstairs and the shoji screens and that's it we're done and then after that save because we have so many in public office right now that i am not uh a fan of i don't hate i don't hate the guy i just don't believe in the guy and i just feel like the economy is going to suffer and especially my industry so it's fixed the house save and then when we get to a certain point look for that second house in japan and
Speaker: If it's better than the house, we haven't killed a city in a better location. That'll be our home and we'll rent out the house in Kyoto city to a Japanese family. And if not, we'll rent out. And when I say better, better for us, not always snobby better, like it's better location for us. It's close to the things we need, blah, blah, blah. One of the two houses will be rented to a Japanese family. We're never going to rent the tourists. We're never going to Airbnb.
Speaker: Cool. Dean. Well, great, a ton of great information. Again, really want to thank you for trusting us here. You were one of our first customers across the line. I know it's ups and downs. We learned a lot together, but where can people find you? Where can people reach out to you? I know you're starting up a little bit of a social media presence in the space here. Where do you want us to direct people to reach out to you? you I have a YouTube channel called Doing Stuff, D -O -I -N -S -T -U -F. It's a at doing stuff, the number four, and then life, doing stuff for life. okay You could go there. My second video about the house is going to be posted in like the next week or two. okay And you can hit me up there and ask me questions, or that's really it, right? Because Facebook is for Retronation, which is my Japanese video game import company. You really couldn't get ahold of me there. It's more for just selling stuff.
Speaker: I mean, if you're in California, go to one of the retro game shows, SoCal Retro Game Show or something like that. I always have a booth there, Retro Nation. You could come up to me and say, I heard you on on the podcast. I want to know more about buying a house. I'll share everything I know. I'm not going to be one of those people that got a house and is not going to share secrets. I'm an open book about this. if people If this is something people want, if I can help, I would love to help because I believe that you should pay it forward.
Speaker: And it's like I said with you guys, man, if you guys need my help for anything as well, you've been so good to me that not helping you when you need it would be a really shitty thing for me to do. Really appreciate it, Dean. Doing stuff for life. That's a good, that's a good motto. That's what we think of when I think of you, Dean. So we'll check in with you. We will be in Tokyo hopefully in April. So let's see if we can film some content. We'd love to check out your spot. But Dean, thank you so much for jumping on the show today. We look forward to having you on again for your second podcast or your second home maybe. But yeah and until then, yeah, if you're looking to contact Dean, we'll put your information in the show notes and yeah, thank you so much, Dean.
Speaker: Absolutely anytime man. Take care. Take care.
