Transcript
Speaker: What's coming in 2025, Jerry? I think one thing that's going to happen in 2025 is we're going to explore a mortgage. There is an option we're exploring with a Japanese loan officer who's based in Berkeley, and that's where the Miyoko property comes into play. I also do predict we will have Airbnb in Beppu ready to go. So we're going to get a little deeper in the Minpaku or Airbnb side. We can figure this out.
Speaker: And once we get a couple of Airbnbs running, I think there's a ah road to profitability. If you had to guess, Taki, how many in the sub $5,000 properties are we going to pick up in 2025? I'm shooting high. 10.
Speaker: Whoa. If I had to guess, we're going to try another Kitakushu long-term rental style as well. Like if it's our first property to turn a profit and it's consistent, that's pretty smart, right? Pretty smart. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm really interested in 2025 on kind of the AkiMart seal of approval. We have our ear to the ground. We've talked to over 400 people this year on what people want. And it seems like someone wants us to go and verify that, hey, this property is legit. Set it up with utilities, set it up with a property manager, set up with a car.
Speaker: So I think there's a lot of service we can provide and get them ready and resell them. This property is done. You don't need to do anything to it. say, for example, in Nagasaki near a beach, and we think it's good, then we purchase it, do a light renovations, building inspection, get the main pocket license.
Speaker: But is anybody else interested in this? Let's see. We might just end up with a whole bunch of empty houses over Japan. I do think if we see value in a property and we verify and sign off like this is a legit property, someone will want it, especially if we keep the price low.
Speaker: Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the Buying a House in Japan podcast. Our first test video episode from our own homes. You're looking fly, Joey. this is I have never seen you in this kind of setup. This is like a news reporter setup right here. got the MacBook. You got the... lock What kind of cup you got? What's the desk setup here?
Speaker: Viva Las Vegas um cup I got going on. For the listeners, we've been doing this mostly audio podcast and we recognize a lot of feedback that we should be doing this as a video clip. So we bought the gear.
Speaker: We bought the stuff. Now it's us kind of just dialing in our setup. And we'll make tweaks as we go along. Keep getting better at it. All right. um Jumping into it, Taki, did you take a listen? So I know me and Taki talked yesterday about about one year ago today, we did a 2024 recap in a 2025 predictions episode. Some we completely like, for example, I think in one of them we said, okay, JLUX, we're going to have Airbnb, like first Airbnb guests have the mean pocket license and everything. February 2025. It did not turn out that way. It's, it's December 2025 we are not very close. to having that goal achieved, but the goal has also changed. So I just want to say like, it was interesting to listen to our predictions. We are way off.
Speaker: They're also on some things we did say, Hey, we're getting a podcast producer shout out to Devin. He was helping us mix this right now. Uh, we were way off though. Yeah. I think some of the big highlights and actually before even going into it, if you're new to the channel channel, my name's Taka. Um, this is Joey. We are college friends.
Speaker: who studied abroad in Tokyo. We have made a website called Akiyamart, which is kind of like the Zillow of Japan. We are now helping people through the purchase process and we are hundred and some number episodes into this podcast and at a hundred likes, Joey, congratulations. we We broke the ceiling.
Speaker: Omerito. Congratulations. 100 likes. That's pretty good. Yeah. And going back to our story, we've purchased six Akias to date. We've helped about 100 to 150 people through the purchase process. So we are, at the end of the day, two regular dudes who have worked in tech who are just trying to build a better solution. But going back to our recap, last year, I think at the end of 2024, we said we were going to have like We were talking about Kite Kyushu or one of our long-term rentals. We're like, oh, we're going to get 10 of those.
Speaker: We were talking about a product called Akimart seal of approval where we were going to go in and do home inspections and like set people up for success, which that was partially success. But Joey, from your perspective, what was the biggest, i don't know, difference in what we with what we thought we were going to do and what we're doing now?
Speaker: ah Biggest one for me is, I believe, so it was one and a half podcast episodes I listened to from about a year ago, and I can't remember which episode it was on. But at that time, at that time of recording, one year ago, I remember us saying, or sorry, I heard us saying, again, that Beppu, J-Lux, our property in Beppu down in Kyushu, our very first property was the one we were most emotionally attached to.
Speaker: when we had, we were saying stuff like we had spent the most time there, uh, most emotionally attached to it. It's our favorite property. And that's really changed. I would say it's the Tama property. Now that is the clear favorites. Um, for this past year, i believe I visited Beppu maybe twice for short periods of time, but I spent the majority of time at the Tomahouse location. So I thought that was um the biggest change.
Speaker: But also, I think one interesting interesting prediction where we absolutely nailed it was the key to Q shoe property KK 20. Um, I think you made the prediction that I think this is going to be our first income generating property. And it absolutely was, um KK 20. Uh, we got a long-term renter in there and I believe you said, we're, you know, we're hoping to,
Speaker: um, get three to five mon. So 30 to 50,000 yen per month. That's like, I don't know, 200 $300 American rent per month.
Speaker: And we hit that, I think on the head, the rent is some mon per month. We pay about one, about one mon of that to the guarantor company that's helping us rent it out. And we make about two mon um straight profit off of that property each year. So JLUX, I think, went in a different direction from our expectations over the past year.
Speaker: KK20, although it was not our most exciting property, like stayed true to its mission and hit the nail on the head there. Yeah. And again, we're going to be throwing these names around. I'm going to try to quickly recap the six properties, but six Akiya's. Our first one we call J-Lux, Jisoji Lux, which is in Beppu, a hot spring town.
Speaker: This is what got the journey started. Second property we bought in a city called Tama, which is 30 minutes west of central Tokyo, which we call Tama Base Camp. This house is, ah again, now our favorite. Third property we bought was in a city called Kitakyushu, which we call KK20. This is a long-term rental that we...
Speaker: A lot like kind of messy, but we are actually getting some returns on fourth property in a city called Miyoko in Niigata, very famous for, I guess, powder hounds. Um, this one we'll talk about Joey, but we are planning on putting a new build there.
Speaker: Fifth property, actually at the time of recording in 2024, we had not yet had the fifth and sixth property. Joey, what was our fifth property and and how to go down in 2025? Fifth property Nagasaki.
Speaker: Um, I'll get into a little bit more context there in a second. Sixth property, Otaru up in Hokkaido, and I can give a little bit more context there in a second. But one thing I do want to say real quick is the naming on that episode. I think one of the big things we're doing on this episode was redo the names to make them so we don't have to keep explaining, you know, J-Lux, TBC, you know, all these different names and completely utterly utterly failed there. I think we kept it up for maybe one or two more episodes.
Speaker: It was just, sorry guys, J-Lux, we'll try every time we say the word J-Lux just to be like our property in Beppu, but You know, I think the longterm listeners, they don't need that context anymore, but hopefully we'll do a good job explaining it as we go along. The name, the names in stick, um, Beppu hot spring, short-term rental, Tokyo suburban midterm stay. Like and it was difficult.
Speaker: Um, okay. Anyways, back to it. Nagasaki at the time, at this time last year, we did not have the Nagasaki property. Um, this is how it went down. Mika, one of our, uh, Aki Amart exclusive agents that we work with, it was her grandmother's property. Her grandmother had passed away. Her aunt had held onto it for a little bit of time and now had decided to sell it. Um, we stepped up to purchase. We got a good deal on it.
Speaker: it was a very good property. It was well loved. And, uh, the previous owners, her aunt and her grandmother, had kept it in really good condition on this small, uh, coastline town in Nagasaki. And we teed it up for the next buyer. Um, we did a AkiMart seal of approval, which I would say was a successful product. We have not done it since, but that was pretty good where me and Take basically we found this property, we checked it out, we got the building inspection done. We sold it with a car, we did a video tour, et cetera. So we kind of teed it up for the next buyer.
Speaker: That was a big success. Uh, and we found a buyer. I think we, they closed sometime, maybe May to June, type timeframe? We knocked that one out of the park, I'd say. We are really unsure of ourselves. And I i specifically remember Joey and I were rooming. We're on a surf trip and a bachelor party in Mentawise, Indonesia. And we're like, kind of like, do we do a survey? Is like anyone going to buy this? And like, we were kind of freaking out a little bit, like under selling ourselves.
Speaker: And like, we ended up putting this out and I think we had like a hundred purchase applications in like 20, 72 hours. I forgot what the timeframe was, but it it was just like, there is such a huge demand for this Akiya Mart seal of approval, but Honestly, Joey took so much energy of ours. Right. And, um, took a lot of energy. money We didn't make any money off it. So we basically just, you know, so we went down there for the trip. We hired a videographer, et cetera, to film the the walkthrough video, all that, all the marketing material, that kind of stuff. And we basically just priced that property at what we put into it. Um, to, uh, to, to market it and do all the work to sell it. So yeah, we didn't even make any money off of it. Um, but that wasn't our point, uh, or that wasn't the purpose of the project. It was to explore selling real estate in Japan. Um, is there a market for us personally vouching for a specific property and saying, Hey, this one's a buy. Cause we do recognize that.
Speaker: purchasing property in Japan, there's a lot of question marks and kind of anything someone can do to remove more of those question marks for a prospective buyer, I think goes a long way. So when we sort of pointed to the, to this property and was like, this is a good property, someone should buy this. Uh, I think people jumped at that opportunity.
Speaker: Yeah, that was actually probably our funnest project of 2025, I would say, Joey. And we were just like, kind of like, oh, it was like an exhilarating thing. We'd get video responses from like all these like random dudes and people all over the world with like why they want to buy Nagasaki. And I think we have to do that again in 2026, but we also have to just like,
Speaker: We have to find the right property, I think, before we do it again. And at least the second rodeo, I think we knew we we can kind of follow the formula. I love the Nagasaki banner we did and all that kind of stuff on the website.
Speaker: But yeah, and we learned about Dormy Inn on that trip, which changed my whole ah travel experience in Japan. Guys, if you can stay in the Dormy Inn, not every city in Japan has them, but Many cities in Japan have a Dormi Inn. It's just a chain of hotels. i think it's very good quality. it's like a It's better than Appa Hotel. I would say it's one better than Appa Hotel, and it's almost as ubiquitous. It's just the the Onsen, and usually they have a Roten Burou, like an outdoor Onsen and a sauna in every hotel. I just think it's a good good quality stay. Highly recommend Dormi Inn.
Speaker: Okay. So that was our our Nagasaki flip or AkiMart seal of approval. Again, we recently touched base actually with the buyer and they're really, really happy with it. They had to move away, but now they're moving back. So great job. Oh, tiny home run on that one, Joey, I'd say. um Hopefully we knock another one out of the park. We have another property, which Joey alluded to, our Otaru project up in Hokkaido.
Speaker: Joey actually went up there. How was the property? Give us the lay of the land of, um, what do we call it? OTR? I don't think we have a name for this one yet. We don't have a name for this one yet. Um, me, so we're purchasing this with our real estate agent friend, Rio. Uh, we also work with Rio as one of our exclusive agents, uh, here at Akia Mart.
Speaker: This property is interesting in that it is, um, what do they call that? Duplex? is that du Yeah. Kind of like a duplex, two entrances, two entrances on two floors. It's basically a building with two separate apartments in it. And they're the exact same. The, There's like ah a basement ground floor and then there's the first floor and then the second floor and the first floor and the second floor are the living spaces and they're identical. Um, it's got two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen, bathroom, and a kind of like entrance foyer kind of lobby sort of room. Um, and I think the interesting parts about this property is it's in snow country. I think that's, it's the the biggest, uh, drawing point for this property. Otaru gets a phenomenal, amount of snow. And when I was up there, people were kind of laughing at me. Like they didn't take me serious. I went up there for a trip and i was like, Oh, I just purchased a property and kind of people were like,
Speaker: looking at me like I was so naive, like I had no idea what I was getting into. Like we hear that story every day, buddy, like people come up here and ski, they want to buy a property, you know, they know like I'll believe it when I see it kind of attitude I was getting. Um, but that's okay. Uh, and I do believe like, yeah, we were new to this amount of snow. I can't claim to fully, uh, know everything that's going to happen, but I think we can figure it out. It's just snow, right? Like, I think we're like, we managed Miyoko.
Speaker: last year last winter and all we had to do was pay somebody to shovel the snow off the roof and the walkway and i think that's probably all we'll need to do this year too Goal with this property, we are also figuring out, do we do a seal of approval? Again, we are getting a Mimpaku or layer B&B license on it.
Speaker: We are starting to like build the infrastructure for production higher production videos and marketing that I think we are well positioned, Joey, to sell this to the right buyer, specifically after this season. So I think we're going up there in February, maybe shooting some stuff, checking out the city. So if you are up in Otaru in February, give us a holla.
Speaker: Yeah, a second seal of approval is what we're aiming for with this property. So in our prediction video last year, we thought we were going to buy like way more properties. We bought two, which I think is pretty good. But the wild card here. said 10. I think we said like 10 more Ketakue shoes. that would That wouldn't have been a bad idea.
Speaker: if if Like ki Keaton, what I do think Keaton had a money-making strategy there. It's unglamorous strategy, and it's like a slow build, like very slow build, but I think it works.
Speaker: think it works but it's just not it's not us i'd say like not not to say it i mean boring investments are the the highest roi maybe in my mind but like a lot was out of our control which i think is where we stumbled like we were waiting for this real estate agent to like find us a tenant find us a tenant and it felt like we were kind of powerless to influence them to work a little bit harder put a few more ads out there and like we were kind of powerless on our end to like make ads ourselves, like where would we post it? Um, kind of thing. So I feel like that was the worst part of the experience.
Speaker: It felt like the, guarantor company was kind of dragging their feet to find us tenant one. It's like not a lot of rent money, so they don't really care. Um, that was, I think the biggest problem for me. What about you?
Speaker: Yeah, it was lack of control. It was just like, all right, Jesus, take the wheel a little bit like Japanese Jesus, take the wheel. We like had no, there's a black box of like what was happening and like, did they even post it on the websites? Like what the heck is happening? We had some lady with 13 dogs who wanted to stay. It was just like really too wild for us.
Speaker: um yeah and and yeah Yeah, too wild and too much that we could not control of the process. Okay. So six properties, but the one wild card here that was, you've probably heard about is we are in the process of purchasing a coin laundry business. So we've, um, over the past two years, I think the coin laundry business, where are we at with that?
Speaker: Before segwaying into this, yeah, no, we've, we purchased six properties at this point. We, we know how to do it. Uh, I'd say semi effectively at this point that we wanted to try something different. Joey over the past couple of years has always been like very interested in a cash business.
Speaker: Um, we went onto a couple of sites. We ended up finding a coin laundry business near our Tama house, maybe like a six minute drive. One thing led to the next. Our offer has been officially accepted, but we are stuck right now, unfortunately.
Speaker: I believe this the landlord has not given us the thumbs up, but everyone else in the transaction has. Yeah, quick, tiny bit of context here.
Speaker: This is our first attempt at buying a small business. And I don't know if this was our mess up or maybe this is going to be very common in the small business landscape in Japan. But this is a, this previous or still currently, this business is a sole proprietorship. There's no business entity. There's no LLC or GK in Japan or corporation. There's nothing like that. It's just a guy, old guy running a business out of a rented retail space.
Speaker: And so what we're purchasing it, we're not purchasing a business. We're purchasing the assets that come with this business and sort of the introduction to the landlord and some, not, not a right, but kind of like a, a gentleman's agreement to continue this lease and running this business. and And so that's kind of the setup there. And so the step we're at right now, sellers agreed. There's like an intermediary company helping us, interact with the seller. and and everyone's agreed to sell this business to us, it's the landlord. That's the last step. So we need to sign a new tenancy agreement because there there's no business entity that is continuing continuing this tenancy agreement. It was this old man, previous owner, that had this lease agreement with the landlord. And now since he's moving out of the picture, it's a brand new lease for us to sign to continue this business in this location. And for whatever reason, we can't figure it out. The seller can't figure it out. The intermediary company we're working with can't figure it out. the The landlord is just being unresponsive. It's not a no. It's not a yes. It's just complete, um ah like, I don't know what sort of communication has happened there, but we've you know we've signed the tenancy agreement and we're just waiting for him to sign it.
Speaker: Yeah, kind of sucks. it's been like It feels like it's been two months where it's like, all right, everything is good. But this is also so very parallels, i think, the Akiya purchasing process in a lot of ways. Quirkiness. Yeah, it's and it's an opportunity for us, I think, especially from a Western perspective of what's happening here? How do we build transparency into this? like How do we make this better? Because from a customer experience perspective, like this sucks. I think we've done...
Speaker: I feel like we've done everything very above board and been very generous and over communicative that we're, I would like to say very good buyers at this point. And we actually have a Japanese company that is buying this in Tama with business card, Japanese person. Like, I don't know, maybe, yeahp maybe there's something up here, but you know, I, I'm not sure that if it there's this much friction to buy in cash, a coin laundry business in Japan, something's wrong.
Speaker: Yeah. And like, I can't, I think it was the intermediary company at one point they're like, Oh, we think he's a very busy person. So, ah you know, apologies. I might just take a little bit of extra time for the Mr. Landlord to come sign this. But like, it's been two months, like no one's this busy. Like no one is making, like little bit of controvert, but like even Trump is making business deals while he's the president. Like if Trump can continue to make business deals, like this landlord is not busy enough to keep, just to prevent him from making business deals. So I feel like, ah I'm not sure what's going on. I don't have, I don't even have a hypothesis for this.
Speaker: We will record more here. We are documenting kind of like with a Miro chart kind of thing of like the flow of how this has been. Hopefully, 2026 is the year of the coin laundry, Joey, the year of the this the small business um game for us. But who knows? We could be back at at square one.
Speaker: We even busted out Old Faithful strategy, which worked with Miyoko. Although, Miyoko, so we wrote a handwritten letter. to the landlord. And we did this with, mia I believe we did this with Miyoko. don't know if it was a handwritten letter. Takedi, you wrote something, right? I think we sent it, even though in retrospect, like nobody would have cared about the letter. I think it was a lawyer that got it or something. I think so too. But we Keaton, actually back to Keaton, who helped us with KK20, our very first profitable Akia. Let's go. Let's go.
Speaker: told us this story, you know, Oh, you know, sometimes a letter can help smooth things over. Like it can't really hurt if you just write a heartfelt letter about your you know current situation, why you want the property, why you're going to take care of it, et cetera. Like, you know, that's a nice thing for the seller to receive and they'll feel better about selling you their house that they've lived in for a long time. So we did that for Myoko.
Speaker: Um, it worked, although I don't know if it like had any effect, we did get the property, but as Taki mentioned, it was actually a lawyer representing the seller. who was actually the one who had power of attorney to sell the property. So maybe it didn't make a difference there, but we tried that again with, um, the coin laundry. So we sent the landlord this time, not even the seller. We sent the landlord a handwritten letter. um my,
Speaker: calligraphy is not that great. Neither is Take. So we actually asked a Japanese friend to handwrite the letter for us so that it it looked like good ah quality Japanese writing. And we put in a $20 Starbucks gift card, not as a bribe, just more for, for the the landlord to remember us. Like, you know, we're to start off on the right foot here.
Speaker: Kind of random here, but if both of us have studied a lot of Japanese and like you go through a lot of practicing of like writing brushstrokes and like there's like four quadrants where things are supposed to be well balanced. And one of our our assistants here is is writing the letters and we showed it to one of our our friends or actually someone who's helping us with the deal. And he's like, that is the best handwriting. The suit is so well balanced. And I'm just like, well what? And it's it's ah yeah, the the nuances are so, so, so crazy.
Speaker: I didn't tell you about this Taki and we haven't mentioned the Ishigaki property yet on the podcast, but I mentioned i'm going through a very similar thing with a property on Island Ishigaki right now. And I met, I showed Hide a screenshot of the letter.
Speaker: that our assistant had written, Hideo said the same thing. He was like, this is very high quality Japanese handwriting. yeah he was like this is He thought i had did it. I corrected him, but he was like, this is better than 99% of Japanese people, I think he said. Okay, we'll get to the Ishigaki saga soon, Joey. But looking back on...
Speaker: I'm curious, from your perspective, what has changed in the Akio space? Very broad question, but or to maybe let's do three things, two things each, four things in total of what has changed, what would have surprised us in 2024, anything along those lines.
Speaker: I think that maybe it's it's either... I want to say that it feels like properties are moving on and off the market faster. yeah um And I want to say that the space is heating up, which I do believe it is.
Speaker: Potentially in 2024, we just didn't have that much of a finger on the pulse of the market. But definitely in 2025, I feel like we have a good understanding of how long properties are on the market, especially in snowy areas. Think Otaru o otaru and Miyoko. Those properties are on the market for... not even a week before they get sold. So I think that we have a better feeling, but I do believe it's speeding up.
Speaker: What do you think? I agree with you. i think the total market or like the average person in the world is now more familiar that there are cheap abandoned homes in Japan. So it's a lot less of us explaining like, oh yeah, there's 9 million abandoned homes. Like, I feel like we don't have to say that anymore. So like the the general base knowledge of the world of like, Hey, I can buy a property in Japan is, has been educated more so. So now it's like people are moving faster and I'd say the space has heated up, but it hasn't exploded quite yet. And the sense that people know that it's possible. And now they're just kind of thinking about it and,
Speaker: It has heated up, but it also has cooled down with the kind of like anti-foreigner sentiment. And it it's hard to know what what is actually happening. I feel like the media is very confusing in Japan.
Speaker: Like Joey talk about this a lot, but like obviously Japan wants to push what it wants to push out. And for its own political reasons, whether it be like bear attacks, Asahi cyber attack, like not focusing on some of the more critical issues, but they're definitely pushing the hey, we're doing, as Japan, we're we're we're making, taking steps to address the the flood of foreigners. And i again, this is just me rambling, but generally I think the space has heated up from a foreigner's understanding, but also cooled down a little bit in that Japan is pushing back and trying to maybe dissuade pe foreigners from buying, maybe just Chinese nationals, I'm not sure.
Speaker: Do you think that Japanese businesses or real estate developers or people interested in real estate, like Japanese nationals interested in real estate, are they buying up Miyoko and Otaro too?
Speaker: I think, and actually think the right people are buying. It's like the people who are really, really excited by the activities in that region. So we help a lot of Australian like families. like We have recorded podcasts with John Kissick and a couple of folks we've helped by.
Speaker: i think there's two two sides. There's like big Singapore investment, seeing potential and wanting to build hotels, but there's also like a lot of dirtbag ski guys who just want to be there for like, you for the snowboarding.
Speaker: But like, let's say a house, ah ah you know, a good quality house comes on the market in Myoko at a reasonable price. yep Obviously there's going to a lot of people bidding. You don't think there's any Japanese nationals bidding on that property or what do you think?
Speaker: There probably are, but they don't, one, they probably don't have, hmm. They don't see as high of a value in it as a foreigner does. So with that, I think foreigners are willing to throw that bid higher. cashsh Yeah. Yeah. It's like, I think you're right in California right now, we have no snow and Tahoe houses are like a million dollars. So it's like, what's, what's a hundred thousand dollars to get, you know, ton of powder and in Japan and have a vacation home. So it's kind of trade offs.
Speaker: All right. What about you? Your first one, what, um, what was the question? What has changed since 2024 going in across 2025? What differences have you seen? Changed. Yeah, no. I think we just hit a lot of kind of small, small things here. But I think people are afraid or like I think Japan is really pushing the fear tactic here when like There's nothing stopping us from buying. Maybe there might be some legislation that comes through in Japan that makes it harder, but Joey and I's perspective is like friction is opportunity. I do think we're going to find a way to push through. And if anything, I think right now is a good time to buy.
Speaker: Um, but hard hard to say, I think, yeah, the, the public, the masses just hear what they see here on Instagram or on the news or whatever Japan is putting out, but I see there's more fear in the space, but what did Warren Buffett say? Like be greedy when people are fearful or something like that. I think there's a little bit of that element that I would recommend.
Speaker: If you really want to be in Japan right now and you love Japan and you want to either move there or have a vacation home, it's it's still a really good time. Just on that note, I read a article in the Japan Times the other day. I don't know if Japan Times is like the, you know,
Speaker: I read the New York Times, so I was trying to look for kind of like the equivalent in Japan. I don't know if this is it or not, but I'm um testing it out. But so anyways, take this information with a grain of salt. But I read an article in the Japan Times about this property registration by foreigners, and it was explaining what it expects people is going to happen in the near future and i made some notes here and just this this is according to um the japan times what the proposal is right now like nothing has changed yet although there ah is a lot of like fear and uncertainty and doubt in the space our foreign is going to be able to continue purchasing property in japan what the article said is that they're only proposing that um whatever database national
Speaker: owner land ownership registry database there is in Japan. They're only proposing that nationality become a field that they include during property registration. So there's no talk yet of banning foreigners from purchasing property. It's just that they want to start collecting data on this.
Speaker: But what I thought it was more interesting is they don't even plan to implement this until 2027 or later, according to the article. So there's still like, you know, I, two year, maybe, maybe minimum one year maximum. Like, i don't know.
Speaker: It didn't seem like how hard is it to add a field? Like I'm a software engineer. It's very easy to add a field in a database. Again, this is government, maybe there's other things I don't understand, but that, you know, sort of slow roll timeline, I thought was really interesting. And the article also said that the explicit purpose that the government laid out was to address concerns that speculative purchases by foreign citizens has driven up condo prices in Tokyo. Survey data in 2025 showed that 3% of condo purchases in Tokyo between January and June were foreigners not living in Japan. So 3% of condo purchases in Tokyo bought by foreigners and they're address they're creating all this to address the speculative purchases by foreigners driving up condo prices in Tokyo. So again, I mentioned this before, but I do think it's unfortunate that if it does come down to restrictions on foreign property purchases in Japan, that a very Tokyo-centric issue affects the entire country when that issue of property prices increasing is really only limited to, i would say, maybe Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, and then the ski areas in Japan.
Speaker: lot lot to unpack there. from One of the impressions, I guess, one of the surprises, or I don't know, whatever I said in the first question is like, The deeper we get into this Akia space, the more inefficiencies we find from a tech perspective.
Speaker: Specifically, I think in Japan, like what are the chances that the Japan government just has a huge Excel file that's like not clean on on this? Like what how are they actually storing this? There's no MLS. Like, is it paper? Yeah. Like I...
Speaker: Japan government, like, how are you guys storing this? I really don't think they're doing this in a tech forward way. And I bet you it's just like a huge Excel file that has not clean data. What would you say, Joey? Maybe Excel, maybe. It's probably a mixture of stuff. I likely, i think it's probably... Like it's probably Excel. There's probably some Excel for sure. There's probably some legacy paper, uh, there as well. Um, it's probably my guess. It's probably a mixture of things. I think maybe part of the issue, how centralized is it? Is it like local re municipal governments have the data right now and it's not quite being shared and they need to make sure that all those local municipals change and get in line. Like, um, I do agree. It's probably messier than you expect. And just on that note, like recently on Akiyamart, go check it out. We rolled out a duplicate listings filter. And the reason duplicate listings even exist is I would claim because of kind of unclean data at the root of it. So listings on Japanese websites, if you go to Sumo or at home, They're not tied to the land parcel like you expect, um, with a website like Zillow in America. When you go to Zillow and you go look, you know, you can look at any property in America and see its historical pricing because it's tied to the land parcel.
Speaker: There doesn't need to be a for sale listing. It doesn't need to be for sale right now for you to go and look at a specific property. Whereas in Japan that doesn't exist. There's no, these, these, these listings are kind of floating out there in the ether. They're not tied to a land parcel. They're more like Craigslist ads is is what I've been saying. So a seller will put up a listing on on Craigslist one and then they'll put up a listing on Craigslist two. And so sometimes you'll see multiple listings for the same property. And that's why we have duplicates because they're not tied to a centralized land parcel where it's either for sale or it's not. It's just these amorphous listings that live out there and different agents can create them and and sellers can create them. and so
Speaker: Tying that all together was a unique challenge, but I think we made great progress. So go check it out. There's on every listing now on AkiMart, you can go click and there's, you can see duplicate listings where I tie them all together.
Speaker: Friction is opportunity. We got so much work we can do here. And I, yeah, again, worried just the route that Japan's government is going with some of these like 2027 to track a field of where the person's from already. Like I'm, I'm confused, but would love if anyone is in contact with someone in this government space, we'd love to chat through, just understand how they're, they're thinking through things. And Joey, maybe we just make something better and sell it to them.
Speaker: That's true. Uh, government contracts likely very lucrative. Um, yeah, but I don't want to work for the Japanese government. That's a tough, tough job. Okay.
Speaker: Uh, more fun topics, Joey, hottest area of 2025. Looking back, you know, we've helped again, a hundred people physically through the purchasing process. We probably helped a lot of people on the website.
Speaker: Niigata. Niigata, I believe. Niigata, number one. Do you disagree? I think Niigata, like Hokuriku, Number one, I would say so much interest. And I think it comes down to there's excellent skiing there. The food, Eric, our friends and a friend of the podcast, bestie of the podcast, um claims he he believes it's the food capital of Japan.
Speaker: Have I even been to Niigata? I'm not even sure. Miyoko's Niigata. We own a house in Niigata. Miyoko is like on the Nagano. But yeah, i what do you think?
Speaker: hundred percent 100%. we we we might be skewed, but we're helping primarily foreigners. And I think foreigners are really, there is a Japao powder hound fever in Japan right now. And it's it's I think it's no competition. people People who are motivated for ski and snow, Japan is just kind of the the spot.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, we were speaking to, so i I do think there's a little bit of a seasonal so slowdown with, um, purchasing property. I know at least in America and other places, people don't want to move in the winter.
Speaker: So we've been seeing a little bit of a seasonal slowdown, but interesting. Our, uh, real estate agent friend up in Hokkaido, Kendall, uh, was telling us that, yeah, there's a slowdown, but then he's like, once the ski resorts start pumping, he's like, it picks back up. You get all the, the snow hounds who come to Japan, uh, to, to ski. And they're like, this place is amazing. Uh, let's, let's explore some property here. So, um, yeah, it'd be interesting to see. We should put in like a billboard advertisement in one of these, uh,
Speaker: like on the chair lifts, like have a picture of our face, like yeah interested in Miyoko. And we have like our thumbs up photo or something like that. I think. me Our Kung Fu photo. We got a new podcast cover coming soon. i don't know if it's going Kung Fu photo, but we just had a friend take some pictures. And one of them is me and Taki doing a high yeah karate kick. So we'll see. New podcast photo, 2026.
Speaker: twenty twenty six Okay, 2025, though, I think we we generally kind of explained the sentiment. Looking forward, 2026 predictions, Joey? 2026 predictions. and Let's see.
Speaker: Consolidation um is what I'm hoping. So i maybe we say this, maybe not. I think we may sell JLUXs. our Bepu property, our first one in 2026. don't think we've discussed that on the podcast yet. Sneak preview. We're still deciding, may not happen, yeah but sneak peek. There's that idea. Like Tama, I think we figured out that Tama is a great property. One of our good friends, my old roommate from New York when I lived in Brooklyn has started a sauna company and now we're like, oh, do we get one of his saunas shipped over to TBC, our house in Tama. So like we're really rallying around the Tama house and unfortunately JLUX has fallen to the wayside. So I think it's time to give it to someone that will appreciate it. We put a lot of hard work into it, you know, a little piece of Akia history there and I think our renovation is really spectacular. So Someone else likes hot springs, um, potentially on the market 2026. Um, in that also trying to sell Otaru, the property we mentioned before. Great.
Speaker: It's phenomenal for skiing. Um, I would say, and it's two units. So buy with a friend and you and a friend both have your own, um, uh, apartment in Otaru where you can go skiing every year for the rest of your life. Um, selling that property to Kitakushu will probably keep Myoko. We got to demolish the house at the very least. So I feel like in general,
Speaker: I think consolidation of properties. Agree with you. Nothing wrong with, again, some of these properties we're selling. It's just like they're an older car that we want to try something different. I think I'm particularly interested in in reinforced concrete buildings.
Speaker: I think from a design perspective, I think they look sick, but also just like a we haven't we haven't done any renovation on a concrete building before. We haven't had that experience. i So really interested there, but also we we just we got too many We got too many effing projects, Joey. I think for us consolidating and just focusing on our website, which we'll talk about in a little bit, is is probably the move.
Speaker: Joey. Yeah, was gonna say that too. Um, as far as well we'll do another episode on our predictions for the 2026 Akiya market or the Japan real estate market, but with limited time, Joey, talk to us about Ishigaki, your personal.
Speaker: Okay. Uh, summing it up little bit of unfortunate news, but this is the first time we talked about on the podcast. no listeners, uh, would even know about the first, the good news and now the bad news, but, um,
Speaker: Yeah, I really wanted a it's a, bli I'm in Nova Scotia, Canada right now. It's literally, but this is December 8th, my brother's birthday. Um, it's a blizzard outside while I'm filming this. This is part, partly why I think it's so bright in this room here. Maybe a lot of.
Speaker: light reflecting off the snow. But yeah, I kind of want to avoid winters in my life, or like at least that's this kind of personal goal I've had for many years. And I'm like, all right, Japan does have some tropical islands. Let's make this happen.
Speaker: So I made an offer on a very, very tiny home. This is quite a small It's it's actually a mansion, condo, but it's just a single story condo building. Very, very tiny.
Speaker: Taki's been joking. It's like a prison cell, you know about the same size. yeah The Ishigaki Gulag, we've been calling it. And anyways, long story short, i was pretty excited on this. i were I was working with one of our agents, so I was going through the Acumart direct process myself, you know, testing it out, making sure, yeah you know, things are are running smoothly. And unfortunately, so I offered um asking price to, you know, wanted this property. i was i was I was fixated. I wanted to be a good buyer. No um no issues. And so um got the,
Speaker: I don't know if it was a verbal offer, but things are moving forward smoothly. No contract was made yet. I was told that on the tropical islands, they kind of operate on island time. So expect things to go a little bit slower. But this morning, just this very morning. So last night I was still hype on this property, but this very morning received news that collectively,
Speaker: The owners of different units in the building had decided to lease their vacant units. So this one was empty. Uh, no one was living in it, uh, had just collectively decided to lease their vacant units to a large real estate developer for three years and they had made this collective decision together.
Speaker: I can't see that. And so unfortunately, um, the seller is no longer selling the property to me. Womp womp. I can't see. Thank you. Thank you.
Speaker: Um, I can't see that anyways. So that could be the end of the story. I am going to try to write a handwritten letter to the, I'm not going to write it again. I'm going get someone with very good handwriting to write it, but I will draft the letter and then our friend will write it.
Speaker: Starbucks gift card inside. There is a Starbucks on this island. Um, and then, you know, that's the, that's the last thing I can do after that. I got to give up and, and, uh, try something else, but I can't see this as anything else other than probably this real estate developer has been maybe bullying or pushing these condo owners.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah. First lease them to me for three years. And then after that, you know, the bottom, yeah, they want to buy it. They want to demolish this and build something bigger there. So, whatever little guy gets squeezed at the end of the day. So in my letter, I got to take a different route. Like, you know, Hey, you know, I actually want to live in this place, you know, kind of go the community kind of, kind of route here. So really putting my money where my mouth is with these handwritten letters. We'll see if it works out.
Speaker: Stay tuned. I'm a little bit bummed, but, um, that's life. Damn, sorry, Joey. For the listener, Ishigaki is in Okinawa. it's It's a tropical area that Joey's been searching for that sun. I've been searching the opposite. I'm going to Helsinki next week to get cold. But I miss 100% of shots you don't take, Joey. I'm sure we will look back on this episode one year from now and be like, good decision. I did not get the Ishigaki Gulag.
Speaker: Onwards and upwards. Yeah, something better is coming. If this doesn't work out, something better is coming down the pipeline. Hell yeah. Okay, Joey, I think good episode. i there's an I think we have to do a follow-up on our 2026 predictions on the Akiya market. But if you're a listener and you made it this far, you know please smash that like button. I think we've actually hit 100 likes at this point.
Speaker: um If it's your first time listening to us, keep following us. We are not stopping on this adventure. we are um We haven't even talked about the website. We've done so much. We're full speed ahead. um I was just talking about consolidating properties, and here I am throwing out offers to do prison cells. We are not stopping. We're doing the stupid things, so you don't have to do them, is what we say here. But, yep, if you have any questions, feel free to shoot us an email. We just launched a new alias, podcast at akia-mart.com. If you're interested in working with us, whether be purchasing and through the process or even helping us build something, feel free to reach out, shoot the shot, just like Joey shooting the shot with his Ishigaki letter and Starbucks gift card.
Speaker: But, Joey, I think this is probably going be our last episode of 2025. It's been one hell of a year, buddy. Everybody out there, cross your fingers for me on this letter. I need everybody crossing their fingers. Cross their fingers for the Toma coin laundry. fingers. Coin laundry. Coin laundry launch party.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. well One for each. Let's go one for each. Yeah. Last episode of 2025. That's a wrap, guys. Thank you very much for listening.
Speaker: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Buying a House in Japan. If you find the show helpful or at least entertaining, give us a five-star rating. Takes five seconds and really goes a long way. If you or someone you know is looking for a Japanese home, check out Akiyamart.com, our English-friendly site that lets you browse over half a million listings. That's A-K-I-Y-A-M-A-R-T.com to find your dream home in Japan.
Speaker: If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at akiyamart.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.
