Transcript
Speaker: This language school was a good way for you to get your foot in the door into Japan. If someone was wanting to come to Japan for a year, I would say that language school is is certainly the easiest route to go down. One to ten, how stressful was this going through this the school? It's a really, really humbling experience to go and just, you know, fail every day. You're also learning every day. yeah So you're growing. if You've got to you've got really got to come with a growth mindset.
Speaker: Welcome back to the Buying a House in Japan podcast, the number one Akiya podcast in the world. Today, we are recording live from Fukuoka, Japan with a special guest, Christian. Welcome to the podcast, Christian. Thank you, Take. Thanks, Joey. It's great to be here. Yeah, great. We've been internet friends, I feel like, for at least the past three months, and we've talked a lot, but it's great to see folks in in the flesh as we do this Japan world trip here. yeah um For those of you guys who don't know, Christian is one of our Akiyamark consultants, so there's a high likelihood when you do book on our site, Christian might be one of those guys. k Christian, can you give us a quick intro of yourself? I come from a really diverse background. yeah I originally trained as an actor decades and decades ago. That's what I had my degree in. um
Speaker: But I've been a filmmaker, a writer. I've owned my own business, ran an art gallery for many years. um or an art gallery. I didn't know. Yeah, yeah. And um ah and then become a a real estate agent. And yeah then have taken a hiatus and kind of moved to Japan. And um yeah, now working with you guys. Heck yeah, that's a lot to unpack there. Where do we start, Joey?
Speaker: Acting. Okay, you're straight into acting here. television i Was it like theater? Yeah, it was a theater, film, TV, commercials, all of that stuff. This was the 90s, so was ah it was a long time ago, Joey. Okay, cool. I was briefly on TV myself, so Kindred, come from the same club here. right, cool guys. Cool guy actors over here.
Speaker: ah So originally from Australia? Yeah, from ah from Bendigo, which is ah it's a small country town. and Yeah, but I'd spent most of my time in Melbourne, Australia. Okay. Coffee capital.
Speaker: Okay, out out of your your your large experience and doing different fields there, like which one stands out as as one of your favorite things you've done over the course of your life there? Making films was incredible. like That was great fun in terms of writing and directing. And you know you kind of assemble a huge amount of people behind you. ah It is ah an absolute team effort. It's something you can't really do on your own.
Speaker: But running your own business is something that you can do on your own. And that's something that is, you know, you have full autonomy. You're not... You're not at the behest of anyone else, no, um and other than your customers, I guess. But um yeah, I found that to be a ah really liberating experience, kind of very eye-opening terms of going from that employer mindset to employee mindset to an employer mindset. What got you hooked on Japan and tell us a little bit about that that relationship. Unlike a lot of other people that come through manga, anime, yeah yeah i it came from literature for me. let's So Murakami, I guess, was a way in. And then but I kind of drilled down from Murakami to much older, like Suzuki Natsumi, Osamu Dezai, Yasunori Kawabata, you know, all of these great authors. And that kind of gave me a sense of...
Speaker: sensibility of of the culture and a way into the culture that I hadn't really seen explored before. That's really interesting. Murakami, one of my favorite authors as well. Osamu, I've read a little bit, but other than that, I don't know any of the other authors you mentioned there, but do it yeah yeah just good to get into. Yeah, just dig in. I found Japanese literature, in my experience, really focuses on like the tragic stories. I feel like a lot of sadness in the writing was I can't remember her name. I read ah read a book recently. It won a prize The Hunchback. I don't know if you've heard about this. yeah yeah About a a disabled woman and going, yeah, kind of crazy story. But just like, i don't know It's just like sadness that I feel like permeates through a lot of it. And like Norwegian Wood, maybe Murakami, one of his famous ones, just like, oh, a little too sad for me. Unlike ah literature in the West and kind of storytelling in the West, we don't it doesn't have a clear beginning, middle, end.
Speaker: it's It's very much that sometimes the stories feel continuous. like And that's what i disliked so much about Murakami initially. And I remember thinking like, why do I dislike this book that I read so much? And and like the more I thought about it, the more like I realized like I was thinking about this book a lot. It's unresolved. Yeah, on it grew on me for sure. And now i I think he's one of my favorite authors. Yeah. Definitely like, yeah, the it it doesn't follow the the like the starting, beginning, end sort of structure that you're expecting. And sometimes it just ends and you're like, what did I just read? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: What do you recommend someone who's not read any Japanese literature? What is that gateway book that you would recommend? Yeah, I would start with Norwegian Wood to begin with. It's kind of the most un-Murikami of Murikami's books. Agreed. Yeah, ah because most of his other books are kind of quite metaphysical and they kind of, they... fantastical yeah they cross across worlds and and it's kind of like a ah dream um ah yeah but i would start with norwegian wood i i would then move to kokoro which is sozeki natsumi it's a it's ah another love story snow country is another amazing um book and yeah if you're an angsty teenager um desite no longer human
Speaker: It's really interesting, actually. but I think last trip, Joey and I, we listened to podcast about Murakami's autobiography he wrote. Yep. About his two obsessions. Yeah. he He's such an interesting guy. He's like a huge runner, yeah a like obsessive runner. and He talks about how that works with riding. But one of the big takeaways actually got from that podcast was like, he's always like, leave a little bit in the tank.
Speaker: you know And I think when he had run, he wouldn't have run to 100% exhaustion. He was always like, let's leave a little bit the tank for tomorrow. And I think that- So you look forward to it still. Totally. So you look forward. And i feel like Joey and I kind of related that to the business as well too. Like we could burn ourselves out and just go hard, but I think we always need to remind ourselves to leave a little in the tank. That's also why we're drinking these non-alcoholic beers and trying to leave a little in the tank. Exactly. I can crack one the tank. Yeah, crack it open. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: Welcome to the the sober, sober Kanpai. Kanpai. already drank mine. Kanpai.
Speaker: Non-alcoholic. Yeah. All right. So literature kind of got you fascinated about Japan. What kind of catalyzed this move? How long have you been in Japan for? So I moved about 12 months ago in April to come across for language school. um I'd been to Japan maybe seven times before that. So visited places like Naoshima, the art island. yeah um ah Tokyo several times. You know, they kind of done that golden route. um But also visited places like Gifu, Takeyama. Yeah, my friend Thomas from Takeyama. takayama yeah. um
Speaker: yeah And I kind of wanted to have a much deeper experience rather than just the six week kind of travel experience or the two week, you know, drop in. And yeah, so the way into that was either through work or through, um, through language.
Speaker: And I wanted first and foremost to kind of go deep on language. It was like, I'd had my Japanese experience many times over in terms of that, that, uh, I don't know, that aesthetic kind of dreamlike yeah arriving and just being, uh, the bedding machines are trains are so clean. wanted to get into that, that deeper layer. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah. So that was language school. Uh, and I chose Fukuoka because it was out of the, out of that golden root. I didn't want an opportunity to speak English every day. I wanted an opportunity to, to really, ah to speak Japanese.
Speaker: been so hard. Fukuoka is quite an international city. It's the gateway to Asia for Japan. So a lot of Chinese, Vietnamese, um Korean tourists will come through Fukuoka and Taiwanese. So, cause you're, you know, you're only two hours from Taiwan. yeah You're only a couple of hours from China um and you're only, I think it's 30 minutes from Busan. I think you can take a ferry, right? Yeah. It's a six hour ferry or it's a 30 minute flight. Do you ever see yourself going for one of the Japanese language examinations?
Speaker: Could you see yourself doing that? I just went through one actually. Oh, you did? Yeah, yeah. Called the J-Test. It's a lot harder than the JLPT. So they say. It's harder than the JLPT. Oh, watch out, JLPT. J-Test. Yeah. I kind of got halfway through language school and realized that it was, you know, I had grand expectations of, ah, in six months time, I'll be blah, blah, blah. I'll be, you know, walking around the street. It's so huh? Yeah. It's so, so tough. Yeah.
Speaker: I found the people that did the best at at language school either were already bilingual or certainly multilingual, yeah or they came with a partner and so they could go home and do their homework together. Coming on your own as a monolingual person from Australia, very, very difficult.
Speaker: I was talking to Eric about Eric's like, Christian must be fluent now. I'm like, no, no, no, Eric, trust me. like du like i've I've studied Japanese for like 12 years or 18 years of my life and I still can't do it. I can read and write a little bit. but I feel like every time I'm with Eric, I like point out like a hiragana character and I'm like, you know this one by now. It's like, You know this one by now, right Take that, Eric, if you're listening. but I think it's Nick from ah Japan Remotely. it says, you know, you kind of need about four years. Totally. And it's like, okay, then that that realigned my expectations. And you like really need to like try, you know, I feel like it's so easy. And like when I go to Tokyo, all my friends speak English and I don't even try because I know they can speak English. And yeah it's hard, right? I can get around. I can order things, all of that. But yeah, getting to that deeper layer. Yeah, that's going to take a little time. I can't learn languages as well as some other folks. I've seen some people who just like drop in and like, I don't know what they Yeah, some people are natural. They just naturally, like maybe there's like some,
Speaker: I know. Something in their brain. Something in their brain or the way they visualize language or something. People with a musical background are usually really good language. True. Because they've already kind of opened those synapses up. Yeah, yeah. What was that trigger for you to be like, okay, I'm going to go to Japan. I'm going to apply for this language school. In a lot ways, it was Akiya. It was the business manager visa. It was, you know, these types of things that made Japan look super attractive compared to... Um, it looked like an opportunity. It was also the fact that I had never really lived overseas. And that was kind of one of my things on my bucket list. It was, you know, it was a big regret in my life that I'd, that I'd never spent that time living overseas. So, uh, it was kind of like now and ever. Was there like a specific moment you can track that back to like, okay, I'm going to Japan or something like that? 2017, 2018 is when I moved into the world of real estate. Okay. And that was kind of post-divorce. So I was resetting my life again and resetting expectations on, you know, how to kind of rebuilding life and going through COVID and all of that stuff. So that was six years of working, you know, six days a week. Yeah.
Speaker: The grind, the absolute grind of real estate, 100 phone calls a day. yeah know yeah like ok you get yeah I was talking to Jerry about the cold calls and just getting, so how'd you get my number and that kind of whole grind. Yeah, yeah. ah you went through it yeah this ah i'm I'm rejection proof now. Okay. It's skill. it' It's really like such a, yeah, such a admirable skill to learn in my opinion. Yeah, yeah. It's also the skill of sales and and all of that. But yeah, I think six years of working in Melbourne real estate, um like that's a it it is a grind. And ah like I worked with an amazing team, amazing group of people. um
Speaker: Agents have such a bad rap and ah most of them had such genuinely great people. Yeah. um And yeah, so ah ah i was I got really, really lucky with a fantastic team of people.
Speaker: But yeah, six days... I was kind of projecting into the future going, what's the next six years going to be like? Is it going to be this? And so I thought I'll take my, my little sabbatical now.
Speaker: Okay, okay, sabbatical turn. Now you're helping us talk to folks, and it's interesting that like you know the dots seem to connect yeah when you look back, that doing real estate, moving to Japan, like you you've made it work somehow. I think at the end of the day, that's that's what you have to do with Japan. a lot of people you talk about the you know the language barrel barrier or the visa barrier or the work barrier or all of that, and it's kind of one of those things where...
Speaker: If you want something in life, you just got to make it happen. Okay. Let's talk about language school, actually. Like every target like language school is hard here, right? like it's ah Like how would you describe your experience this past year? So I went to a fantastic language school called Genki Jacks. Genki Jacks. So there are different types of language schools in Fukuoka. There are ones that are really based around for Indian and Nepalese students, which would be really hardcore students.
Speaker: and they're And they're designed to basically get them up to speed, okay language really quick, and get get them into konbini's. Interesting. Investing to to work some of those service jobs. Exactly. Actually, on that note, I'm always surprised when I am in a konbini or a restaurant and the server is someone who looks Nepalese or... from that part of the world. And they they're like nailing the keigo, like the server keigo. You know, there's an accent to it, but like they're nailing the words and I'm like, I don't even know, like I wouldn't be able to say that kind of stuff. And I wonder if they like part of these language schools where they're like, this is how, you you know, the Japanese, hospitality like this is what they say in this time this is what they say in that time so maybe maybe that's how they because i'm like wow thank yeah yeah they really got this like perfect and from my understanding they're kind of a language school like eight hours a day so and they all live together in a part in these teeny tiny little apartments but my language school was ah a bit different i guess it's more of a lifestyle kind of yeah language school and they don't really teach to the test so a lot of language schools teach that's a great test actually i think yeah the jay test or to, or N3, N2 to, to kind of get it into the workforce in Japan. And, and that's a, that's a real slog. And so Genki Jacks doesn't, I didn't get the sense that they were, they were really teaching to that test.
Speaker: um It's four hours a day. um you know, it's nine till kind of one 30 you're doing, you've got another two or three hours of homework after that as well.
Speaker: um So it's, you're absolutely dedicated to to being there. Interesting. Okay. So year in, you know, when you started, did you know any Japanese or like very? No, knew zero. Zero. Okay. That would be my biggest regret actually, is that I didn't spend kind of, you know, night times, just studying up and kind of getting across hiragana, katakana, you know, all of that stuff. Now, do you watch like Japanese media, like Japanese social media? Like, have like an Instagram account only for Japanese like stuff or TV or what, all of it? Yeah. NHK and lots of YouTube, lots of influencers, all of that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like with the one year language school, you feel pretty comfortable going out and speaking Japanese what? In terms of, I can understand a lot. Yeah, me too. The confidence in actually speaking and engaging beyond what you want is a different story. It's a different layer.
Speaker: There's also you know that massive difference between textbook learning and casual speech. So it sounds like but though like this language school was a good way for you to get your foot in the door into Japan. like Did they navigate like that visa process? Was pretty easy or was that difficult? If someone was wanting to come to Japan for a year, I would say that language school is is certainly the easiest route to go down. I think there's a huge incentive for the government in terms of, doahhi you know, like you'll pay 10 grand to go to ah a language school. So there's a massive economic injection to a school for one. yeah You've got to accommodate yourself. So there's another yeah bunch of money and you got to eat every day. And so you you as a student are pouring money into the economy. Absolutely. The government would be mad not to, yeah you know, not to want to do that. Do you see people taking advantage of it, like working on the side or like just doing it to be here for the year and not studying at all? or You are allowed to work. You can work 28 hours a week. yeah um So a lot of people get okay um side hustles or part-time jobs, um cafes, bars, all of that stuff. There are restrictions around what what you can work in, in terms of um yeah the the types of roles that you can do. Could someone feasibly like fail every test and just get that visa, you know, if're just hypothetically? I think it's about your attitude at the end of the day. So, you know, if you're turning up on time and you're doing your homework and you're, uh, you know, yeah, you're, you're trying, there's no reason to, to kick you out. One to 10, how stressful was this going through this, the, the, the school again? I'm just trying to ask, like, think about myself here. Like, was it kind of like chill? Would I do this? Would I do, like, if I want to get serious about really like nailing Japanese spoken word, like spoken Like 10 being like the hardest, very stressful. One being like super chill. Where would you put that experience I would say the first three months were the most stressful. Okay, so like 10, 9, 8? Yeah, I'd sayd say that that was a 9. Really? Absolutely. No. as a real estate agent in Australia, that's a nine. It's a really, really humbling experience to go and just, you know, fail every day. Okay. But that's also an attitudinal thing in terms of how how you look at it. You're also learning every day. Yeah. So you're growing. If you've got to, you've got really got to come with a growth mindset. is a school set up only for people coming in with zero Japanese knowledge or king can you come in as an intermediate learner, advanced learner? No, you can come as an intermediate and advanced. you You'll take a test before and they'll check your Hiragana Katakana level.
Speaker: um And yeah, it's really, ah then they they'll assess you from from there. Yep. Okay, so it's like different lessons based on kind of where fall. Yeah, and there's also flexibility in terms of like um the the classes are dynamic in terms of they'll they'll move you up or down accordingly. um so yeah, there's definite flexibility. I had flashbacks. I did like some Japanese placement test at some point and they had me do the katakana, hiragana and then the lady was just like, here's a blank sheet of paper.
Speaker: I want you to write about this topic. And I was like, no. It was tough. ah but yeah stressful Because you could do the ka or whatever. oh no i could I can write everything, but then she wanted me to like write about it. She's like, write about a topic in Japanese. sentence what Write sentence. She wanted me to fill it out the entire paper. i was like, okay, here we go. Basic sentences. Start with konnichiwa. Hello, my name is Take Maru. Big space. like I was going about it. But um I mean, cool, Christian.
Speaker: Good job getting it getting this far. I think, again, I would have probably quit in that first three month phase. But let's shift gears here a little bit and talk about real estate. You've had a unique background being real estate agent in Australia and then coming here again to remind the audience, Christian has has been helping us talk to a lot of customers. I think you've probably talked to like 200 people by now. yeah What are your thoughts on Japanese real estate so far? It really is about tempering your expectations in terms of, it it's one of those things where um ah go and visit the location that you think that you want to buy in, first and foremost, walk the streets, get a feel for, um if you can get into some houses, then great.
Speaker: Like, I came to Fukuoka two years prior to coming to language school, went down to Nagasaki, emailed an agent there. He just gave me the code. I just did it all through. Whoa, they let you in? Yeah, yeah. Oh, really? all all through AI.
Speaker: Wow. Or Google Translate, I think, at that at that time. And ah yeah, just got permission. you gave me the key code. I walked through the house. I did a kind of 10-minute video. um Did you say you were a real estate agent when you contacted them? I don't think I did actually, but I wow yeah but i reached out. They were super chill about it. okay But again, you can only get to a certain point. So I was super happy to kind of move forward make an offer on the property, but I kind of waited too long and then it then it got sold underneath me, but which was fine. was It was a really good learning experience. Yeah.
Speaker: ah would I recommend Akimak customers do that? I think that you can only get so far into the process before you really need someone's assistance on the ground. Totally. And that's that's the kind of service that we provide. It sometimes also changes the, puts the relationship in in like a I don't know, in an awkward situation. So we have some customers try to reach out and a lot of these agents think they can handle a foreigner and they want the double commission of the buyer side and the seller side. and And then we get injected in and it's a little bit of a mess because obviously our buyer's agents are working hard for that commission. And They have to pay extra commission. So if you're listening to this and you want to try to see a place, it it first off, it's quite hard to get a response.
Speaker: Christian, I think, whoa, you somehow got the key code. That's a rare exception. It's very rare. Yeah, that's not common. But I will say, yeah, talking to an expert like Christian or someone on our team really helps you before you start the process, set it on the right foot. Because when a Japanese real estate agent is that first contact point, it just makes things so much smoother.
Speaker: Yeah. Like you said, on the Japanese seller side, if you if you contact them directly, that Japanese seller agent is going to expect to get the double commission. So they're going to expect to represent you as a buyer as well. And then if you later contact us and ask for our services, the commission gets a little bit complicated because the seller side is still going to demand the double commission. They're like thinking, we can do it, but they just don't know the the intricacies of working with a foreigner and and stuff like that. Yeah.
Speaker: um Okay, how do you, you know, what's the Australia market like right now? Is it kind of just like shooting, streaming through the roof? Like, do you feel like you could buy it? Like, what made you kind of like, ah, I'm done being a real estate agent in Australia? Real estate in Australia is its its own beast. It's kind of, it's very, um how how do you put it? It's kind of like the Canadian market. It's extremely topsy-turvy in terms of, um it's got this endless growth.
Speaker: It's crazy, right? no Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, there are many layers to it, but one of them is we have a marketplace, which is kind of driven on thinking of real estate as an investment rather than as a, you know, a kind of human right. Yeah. um And, so and so everybody thinks of their house as an investment. um And so everybody expects it to grow over time. We've also got a tax incentive called negative gearing, which is in incentivizing people to buy investment property yeah and then write it off as a loss um and then pay that out over time thinking that the property is gonna grow over time. So it's got this, and then you've got this massive um um immigration. creation yeah And so it's so it's a very topsy-turvy market in in in terms of, it's just got this endless growth and we never see it kind of drop. That's how I feel about the US s market, especially. It was like in the, yeah, in my third mid thirties, I like can't, it's just going to keep keep going up i don't know it's again i've only been through so many real estate crashes you know during my buying lifetime but it it
Speaker: Feels like it, like it's shortage of supply, inflation, people are getting like lot of immigration, people come in from abroad with a ton of money. It's just like not feasible for us to buy something. yeah ah i don't know if Australia's done this too, but in Canada, the Canadian pension plan is so heavily invested in real estate, like they can't let real estate prices drop or else no one gets their pension anymore. Yeah, i don't know about that. But I mean, we've also got council restrictions in terms of planning. And so the the planning laws are ah ah very, very tight, can take years to get to get um things built. Talking about just like specifically Australian investors at this point, I think Australians are maybe our second most highest demographic that we help through the purchasing process. It seems like
Speaker: tourism of Japan from us tourists from Australia to Japan has increased to like something has caught fire where people are like, oh my gosh, Japan has that, is that a recent thing or do you think it's been like that for the past? I think ah well a snow country has always been huge for Australians because basically there's only a ah couple of major snow ah ski places in Australia and they're super expensive. And so people flip a coin and go, well, I could go to Hokkaido or Niigata and for the same kind of price. end up
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. Huge powder, you know, amazing, amazing ski, have a cultural experience, all of that stuff. Um, and I think because of the weekend as well, it's on the encourage people to, to be here. Is the time zone roughly the same?
Speaker: Yeah. it's only two hours difference during daylight savings. Only an hour. That's nice. Yeah. Yeah. And only an hour at at half the year. Yeah. Okay. Whoa. Yeah, yeah, so, and flight wise, it's only, you know, to fly to Tokyo from Melbourne, it's eight hours, nine hours. Pretty far still.
Speaker: Yeah, so it's pretty. Better than 15 from the East Coast, yeah yeah. Okay, what would you say to someone in Australia who's thinking about buying Akio or just a house here at this point? Like, if they're starting from ground zero, they saw an Instagram post, what would you recommend or would they think about? More than anything, it's a lost lifestyle adventure, but it...
Speaker: But it's also, you know, it commits you to ah to a place as well where you can make memories with your family and friends and all of that stuff. It's so cool. We've helped ah we helped someone recently buy an Iyama and they like two friends bought this big kind of like compound and they were making it a ski kind of spot for their kids to come during Christmas. And like, I feel like Australian customers have just been so, have have had the right attitude. They're stoked. Yeah. They're just like stoked and they seem very handy and just like ready to roll with the punches. Yeah. Yeah. I think Australians in general are very ah positive. Yeah. And then you throw that into the mix where you're looking at a, you know, the minimum spend of a house in Melbourne is like, you know, 1.4 million. Really? And suddenly you've got a house in Japan for like 20 or 30 grand. And it's like, yeah, yeah. Holy hell. And proximity to some of the greatest skiing like on the planet. Yeah. course, we'll just dig in, we'll do anything to to make it work.
Speaker: when When were doing consultations, I loved doing it with Australians because they just had such a good attitude and humor of just like, yep, we know this get it they this isn't going to make us all right. We're doing this as a vacation home. We love Japan. We love the lifestyle. And I think that's such a good attitude, again, especially for some of these more dilapidated Akiyas in the countryside. A lot of people love beach property. A lot of people have, um, you know, but they're, when I was growing up, they were old asbestos shacks yeah is sitting there and now they're kind of, those asbestos shacks have been knocked down and they're building building multi-million dollar and kind of entities now.
Speaker: Doing all these consultations, I'm curious, like some, let's say I'm someone who just booked a consult. I see, I'm listening to this podcast. Like what kind of things do you want people to do or research or think about prior to the consultation? with So i would I would say more than anything, know where you want to be. okay So really drill down on a location that you want to be is probably the best thing. um So most people, when they, like they'll fill out a kind of form. Yeah, they'll put it where they want. And lot of people put links to like, this place in Nagasaki or this place in Hokkaido. And it's like, it's unrealistic to think that our agent who's looking after you and looking after you on the buyer's side is going to be flying all over the country, going to have a look at these places. It's much better if you kind of make a short list of a very specific place in mind and preferably a place that you've been to rather than just a Japan fantasy. 100% agree. I feel like when someone's like looking at just that like a cheap house in the north and the south and the west and the east it's just like, is this person the right person? I mean, that was us. Like our first, I think back to like when we first started, again, we didn't have all the resources. I think we're generally kind of surf-oriented. Well, mean, Okoyama, like Miyazaki. Yeah, yeah, okay. We were kind of bad, but I agree. Like, yeah, that's not the right way to go about this. And yeah, definitely pick an area. Yeah, well, I mean, I would say learn from you guys. So, I mean, we didn't have AkiMart back then. Yeah, on our slide deck, we can see the six houses that you guys bought and they're freaking everywhere. Yeah. You know, it's like you're the worst customers. We are the worst. We're the worst customers. So you can be the best customers. That's what you say.
Speaker: Yeah. So you made all the all the mistakes. So yeah, some of them stole more coming. Absolutely tried to refine it. Curious, Kirsten, for you, you know where are you interested in buying? What are you thinking about for the future? Is is real estate in Japan a purchase coming soon? or I would love to buy here. Okay, Fukuoka. Would I buy in Fukuoka? Yes, it's it's one of the it's so it's the fifth largest city in Japan. It's one of the fastest growing cities. It's one of only five cities which actually have population growth. yeah um and The others are Chiba, Saitama, I think Tokyo, obviously, and others somewhere else. And Chiba and Saitama are pretty much Tokyo. Yeah, exactly. It's just the 24th, 25th water. I reckon um a place like Kanazawa is really yeah and unexplored. I think it's a really beautiful, pretty city.
Speaker: Onamichi as well is an area. Onamichi is good area, yeah. Where is that? Onamichi is down on the coast. It's in Hiroshima Prefecture. The bike trail. Oh. Oh yeah. That's why I know the name. Seto Inland Sea. okay yeah So you can kind of hop across to, um like I, I love that art islands area. Uh, I would love to explore Shikoku, but that is a bit of a Japan fantasy, I think, cause I haven't been there. Shikoku is cool. yeah We've been there few times. Shikoku boys. All right, Christian, final question here, Joe, you want to hit hit him with the the final question here? Great. If you had a magic wand and could change one thing about Japan, what would you change? Given that Japan is losing about 900,000 people a year in population decline, I think i would incentivize entrepreneurialism um yeah and and and make it easier for people to to grow and build businesses here.
Speaker: If they're serious about revitalization communities and places outside of Tokyo and Osaka, then entrepreneurialism is the fastest way to growth. 900,000, basically a million people a year. You project that out 40 years and suddenly you're looking at 120 million down to 80 million Um, that's, it's fast decline there. And I mean, you know, there's a lot of people that argue, well, you know, we want Japan to preserve its culture. There's a whole lot of reasons why we, why, why we all love Japan and why all of our customers like Japan. Uh, so we want to preserve elements of of that culture, but there's also, um, you know, things have to have to change in the future. Totally. Such as just like an unspoken problem when you watch NHK and all these news channels and they don't talk about, I think like, okay, there's a pretty big population decline, the Akiya problem, on the economy. And like they talk about bears up in Hokkaido getting attacking people, you know, it's like the main headline. Don't know. Yeah, we don't have the answers, but I totally agree with you. That's, that is one of the really big issues that needs to change. I also think that if you're going to come to Japan, like embrace the culture. Don't absolutely. There's a reason why you want to be here. Uh,
Speaker: you don't fear the language as difficult as as it might be. Don't fear the culture. Get out there, talk to people, make things happen. Like if you want to build a life here, you really have to make things happen on your own. Awesome, Christian. You're a prime example of that. You know, i we really appreciate you being part of our team. Again, for folks who are listening, you may be booking a consultation with this expert, Christian, who has years of experience in the real estate industry and in Japan. Christian, we're very, again, thankful for you to be here. And yeah, hope to have you back on the podcast soon. Thank you.
Speaker: Thanks.
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. 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.
