Transcript
Speaker: Hey y 'all, we've got something a little bit different for you this week. We recently were interviewed by the Japan Real Estate Podcast and we're resharing the podcast here. In it, we do a video demo of our site, Akiemart. So check out the YouTube link in the show notes for the full video. Also, I highly recommend you listen to the Japanese Real Estate Podcast. It's got great content on, well, everything Japanese real estate and was the inspiration for our podcast. Find the link in the show notes and I hope you enjoy the show.
Speaker: Either folks, and welcome or welcome back to Nippon Trading International's Japan Real Estate Podcast. I'm your host, Ziv Nakajima, again, and this podcast is brought to you, among others, by Emil Gorgis of realestate .jp. He's a Tokyo real estate agent who specializes in serving international or mixed nationality families who are looking for the perfect family home. So Emil's an Australian, he's been living here in Japan for over two decades now, and for about half of that time, he's been buying, selling, and managing real estate properties in Tokyo
Speaker: on behalf of his own family and a great many happy clients.
Speaker: And he also acts as a mortgage broker on behalf of his client. So he's got dedicated loan officers and many of the Japanese megabanks. And if you're a regular listener of the podcast, you probably already know him from our JREP, the Japan Real Estate Experts Panel Sessions, which means that you're already aware of the fact that demand is an absolute fountain of wisdom on all things related to real estate in Japan, and in particular to family homes, the greater Tokyo metropolitan area and mortgages.
Speaker: Most importantly, he's incredibly generous with his time and advice which he's more than happy to provide at no cost or commitment to anyone asking. So if you've been thinking about buying your home in Tokyo but you've been sitting on the fence for a while or you just want to have a chat in English with a real expert, drop him a line on sales at realestate .jp, hit him up today and start exploring your options.
Speaker: All right, now a quick ask before we dive right into today's episode. My other company, Nippon Bridge, has recently been engaged by a new client who's in the market for a Japanese business to purchase. He's a senior marketer with many years of experience in the field, loves Japan, and he's now in the market for a Japanese company to purchase. A small company, the budget for the purchase is about 200 ,000 US dollars, give or take.
Speaker: but a profitable one and most importantly one that has an actual physical product that has at least a small local following and the potential to expand that clientele domestically initially and then eventually internationally with the right strategy. So ideally this would be a small mom -and -pop type shop that sells anything that's uniquely Japanese
Speaker: and not too well known overseas. So think Shochu over Nihonchu, Yukata over Kimono, that kind of thing. And maybe a business with succession issues where the owners want to retire but don't really have anyone to hand the family business over to.
Speaker: or any similar scenario. So if you know of any business like that, feel free to contact us at info at nipponbridge .com or just leave us a comment in the comment section wherever you found this episode. Again, the main factor here is having a uniquely Japanese product that can be marketed overseas.
Speaker: Now, speaking about unique Japanese products that can be marketed overseas, we've got a super special episode lined up for you today, especially for those among you who have an interest in Akiya, which is a lot of you, or just generally in family or holiday homes in Japan.
Speaker: and you've been having a hard time, as most of us do, trying to sift through the endless, vastly inconsistent listings websites in Japanese that are out there. Two of our clients, who have recently purchased an Akia property themselves, have put their heads together and come up with a truly remarkable project called AkiaMart. It's an English online platform that does most of the legwork for you by searching, collating, translating, and presenting Japanese property listings
Speaker: in a simple map -based format, the kind you're probably used to if you've been using Zillow, Redfin, or any of the other counterparts in other countries. Amazing initiative. It's already gaining some serious traction all around the world. They've just been featured on Business Insider. They're absolutely killing it within only a couple of months from launch, and it all started in their school days, apparently. Enjoy the conversation with this very cool duo. I know I certainly did, and I'll see you again on the other side.
Speaker: Okay, cool. So I'm very happy to have the two of you on the podcast. You're definitely not our biggest customer. I mean, Akia by nature are not like really expensive, but you're definitely one of our coolest customers. So I really wanted to bring you on and to first of all, talk a little bit about your own personal Akia purchasing experience.
Speaker: and then get into that very, very, very exciting initiative that you've founded recently. So please introduce yourselves. Who are you? Cool. Well, hey, thanks for having us. We're a big follower of the podcast. So it's been a goal of ours to get on here. So thank you for having us and thank you for facilitating our purchase. Just to start out, intro wise, my name is Take Kurosawa.
Speaker: I went to school and met Joey in college, where I studied abroad in Tokyo. For me, I'm born and raised in the Bay Area. I'm a licensed California real estate agent, and I've been in Hawaii for the past couple of years as well, doing Airbnb investments. And most recently, yeah, Joey will probably fill it in more, but we... But wait, you said you studied abroad, but you're a Kurosawa, so there's definitely a Japanese connection there, right?
Speaker: There's my dad is Japanese. My mom's Chinese, but, uh, funny enough, Joey's Japanese is a hell of a lot better than mine. I born up as Japanese American. So can read and write, understand the culture, but I'm not fluent.
Speaker: The Japanese is fine. Thanks, Jerry. My name is Joey Stockerman, a good friend of Takei's. Like he said, we studied together in college at ICU in Mitaka. I'm a software engineer and me and Takei both found ourselves out of a job this past year. And the first thing we did was buy an Akiya in Japan.
Speaker: uh kind of with their savings so uh so i guess like the definition of prop tech right like we've got a real estate agent and a software engineer yeah my background is also intact too so well that that's us silicon valley team there we go so how how did the um akiya dream come about i mean i get the japan connection but why akiya
Speaker: Yeah. So it started me and Joey have done a couple of crazy trips throughout the past couple of years, but this most recent one, we went to Montenegro where my girlfriend is, uh, during that time, she had actually bought, I guess an equivalent of a cheap property in Montenegro for about 40 K. Uh, so during that time, I, I usually tasked Joey when we do these kinds of like missions to fix things up. So Joey was my electrician and handyman.
Speaker: Oh, I did not know that you do that. Okay. Yeah, I would say hobbyist electrician and not enough to be safe. Not enough to be dangerous enough to be safe. Good enough for Montenegro. But yeah, we're both both unemployed. We're together just hanging out.
Speaker: My girlfriend unfortunately had to work, so we had some bro time to brainstorm. We saw cheap houses, Japan, Instagram posts. We were like, ah, we got to just, let's go for it. You know, when the stars are never going to align, we're both unemployed. Um, we have a little bit of capital to spend on the, uh, Akia. So we kind of made a commitment then and there just to be like, let's just punch it out. Let's do it. You know, there's a lot of options, but let's, uh, just take the first step.
Speaker: Yeah, and for me, one of the main things I feel like for me is that, so I spent six years in Japan and one of those years is the time that I met Take, but that was 12 years ago and I had not been to Japan since then. So for me, one of the big reasons for moving on buying one of these affordable homes in Japan was just to spend more time in the country. That's one way I wanted to set up my life going forward in the future is just to be able to go back to Japan at least once a year.
Speaker: Uh, was a big driving factor for me. Yeah. To add, Jerry mentioned, uh, last time Jerry was there 12 years ago, the exchange rate was $1 to 75 yen, I think. I remember those days. Yeah. So we saw that big swing, you know, this past year and we're like, wait a second, something, this is a good timing. So that was another reason. You and the rest of the world and their dog. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: So what did you, so when you first approached it, I mean, you had a familiarity with Japan and I'm guessing you must have stayed occasionally in some, you know, all traditional Japanese homes or modern homes or whatnot. But what were like the things you didn't expect when you started digging into that?
Speaker: Yeah. And I guess the, the biggest one being like Japanese real estate sites are tough to navigate as a English speaker. You know, we found ourselves converting everything, you know, I know American I'm square feet kind of guy, but everything was meters yen to dollars, uh, just the translation of the sites. It was all really foreign. So that was a big difference here in the U S big user of Zillow or Redfin. So it was kind of used to that UI and.
Speaker: you know, just process. So that was the first from the identifying perspective. Um, but also just surprised, you know, a lot of these places are, I remember we did a zoom tour with you and we're asking like, can you ask the owner why, or the seller's agent, why this place is abandoned or like why this place is empty? And you kind of just said like, Oh, of course it's a, you know, the elderly just moved out and that kind of took us, that surprises us, you know, that this is not just, this place is good still. And it was just a natural reason for someone moving.
Speaker: Um, yeah, I remember you mentioned something was like, oh, you know, it's kind of like this, the, you don't even have to ask that story. It's, it's, it's, it's really the, the demographic shifts in Japan. Like that's why there's so many houses. You don't even have to ask kind of thing. I remember that stuck with me too. Um, one of the things I guess that kind of, uh,
Speaker: I noticed right off the bat. I didn't notice this until we got to Beppu, which is where we bought the house. But as soon as we went upstairs to the second floor and our feet were sinking through the floorboards, I was like, wow, I guess the 19, maybe 60s, 70s Japanese construction techniques, just flimsy materials used. I wish I could say it's very different these days, but they're still not really built to last, unfortunately. Is that it?
Speaker: Do most homes now, are they insulated when they're built or are they still building homes uninsulated? They're still building them uninsulated. Double pane windows have become a bit of a thing with new homes, but it's still an option, right? Like they would ask you, do you want to insulate? It's like the latest tech and the walls are definitely not insulated. And yeah, I personally, me and most Gaijin's I know who live in Japan just don't get it. But for some reason, it's never caught up, caught on here.
Speaker: Yeah, we were talking to our contractor who's tearing walls down and we were tearing walls down and we saw that like, there's no installation. Like, can we just add this really easily? Like, yeah, no problem. And he wouldn't have mentioned it or he wouldn't have done it had we not been like, can you add that installation in there? It'd be really helpful. So you insulated the wall. Did you?
Speaker: So we're in the process of insulating the walls. As we tore down some walls, we're like, we should, it got pretty chilly when we were there in November that we're like, if we're doing this, we may as well do it right. How much does that cost? Because I seem to recall it's not cheap, right?
Speaker: Yeah. So we're in total, we bought our house for 42 K a U S dollar at the exchange rate. We're estimating budgeting around the same price and renovation costs. So the installation is part of it. So it is expensive, but I think it's a non -negotiable if you want a future proof house for comfort.
Speaker: Yeah. And we're only insulating the downs. We, we enlarge the downstairs portion. So we knocked down some walls, made the space bigger. And, uh, those walls were getting, uh, like the exterior walls, we were taking off all the, the sunakabe. So all the, that, that it was kind of crumbling and falling apart. So the walls were down anyways, when we asked the contractor to put the, uh, the insulation in. So maybe it wasn't too much more, uh, as a contributing factor to the overall cost. I'm not sure.
Speaker: Okay, and then with the purchase process itself and all the various things that you had to do after you've purchased, like to connect to stuff and register stuff, how did you find that to be compared to the US?
Speaker: Yeah, the purchase process here in, here in California, where it's like, wow, wow. West things go so fast and loose. Uh, I think Japan, you warned us in the very beginning of it's a longer process. And we saw that, you know, there's a lot more paperwork, even though Japan is a digital Ford society, quote unquote, you know, there's those wet signatures and mailing stuff back and forth took time. So that was a surprise to us, but it's, you know, we got a, it's just a different game and got to take the California real estate hat off and put the Japanese real estate
Speaker: As far as the setting up stuff, you guys did it all for us. So it was quite easy. Um, you know, it makes it very simple. We rocked up to the house with, there was some small things where the gas maybe wasn't turned on, but we at least had running water. We had electricity. So it was great to know that, you know, you guys helped us. Yeah. Uh, really, really helpful.
Speaker: If you've been following this podcast for a while, and in particular our J -Rep sessions, you're probably more than familiar with Blanca Kobayashi of ArcReform. They're a bilingual renovation company serving clients in the Kanagawa and Kanto area, so Tokyo, Chiba, Saitama, Kawasaki, Yokohama,
Speaker: They can handle simple, small -scale projects as well as full house renovations and they will work with you on the perfect design for your dream family home. But not only homes, Ark Reform also handle commercial property renovations, offices, restaurants, bars, shops, you name it, from traditional classics to the latest trends in interior design and renovations.
Speaker: so you want to email them for a free consultation and quote at info at arcreform .com that's a -r -k reform all one word dot com and give your home or commercial space the love and care that it deserves okay and you don't just to clarify for listeners you don't have residency in japan at this time correct
Speaker: Yeah, we're both on foreign, we're just kind of just using the tourist visa of six months a year, which I feel like is enough to get a good taste of Japan every year. Yeah, I probably see myself max like four months at the moment at where I'm at in life right now. So we're not, uh, yeah, pursuing a visa or anything at the moment.
Speaker: Yeah. So again, for listeners' sakes, registrations, number one registrations are a lot more challenging if you don't have residencies. So in our customers' case, a lot of the stuff has to be registered under our name. Like for example, the insurance policy is taken out in our company's name with the buyers as beneficiaries of any payouts, for example. And
Speaker: registering a car which is a process that you guys have been going through recently and that that's a bit of a challenge as well but I think the other end of it is that in Joey's case may be a bit less problematic but even if you are a resident and you are registered all services will be provided in Japanese and Japanese alone there's no
Speaker: English hotline or English website where you can go on and log complaints or claims or anything of that sort. So you always have to have somebody who's fluent in the language, whether it's a friend or relative or acquaintance or someone like us handling it for you. Thank you for doing all the paperwork for us. That is our worst fear to get paperwork in Japanese.
Speaker: figure out what what we need to sign or what hanko or i don't know yeah so thank you guys at nti for making that process really seamless yeah okay so now for the exciting stuff um when you arrived here for the first time um you've already shared with us that it's not just that akia that you're interested in you've got a whole infrastructure plan for other people as well so please tell us about that
Speaker: Yeah. Um, the big intent in Joey jump in wherever was, this was kind of a proof of concept for us. Again, we've been figuring it out as we go, uh, both again, unemployed. So kind of putting our time and energy of figuring out like, how do we make this work? So once we get this.
Speaker: But how it's ready, we are planning to explore the Aminpaku or Airbnb process just to see if there's revenue while we're not there. So once we kind of figure that out, we've, during the process, Joey built this site called achiamart .com, where I'll let you talk about it in a sec more, Joey, but it helped us find Beppu on our spot. Again, we were kind of used to that Zillow Redfin UI that we kind of just built something quite similar to that. So Joe, I'll pass it off to you to talk to us about achiamart.
Speaker: Sure, that's exactly how it started. Just briefly to expand on what Taki said, how it started. We use it for ourselves. So we were using Cheap House of Japan. He's got a great subscription newsletter map. But we had dialed in after a few weeks, a month maybe, that we wanted to find a place in Beppu. And unfortunately, he didn't have any listings there. So we were going through the Japanese website.
Speaker: Uh, translating, you know, getting a spreadsheet together of spots that we liked ourselves. And I figured I'm, I'm a software engineer currently laid off. I just decided to build my own map. Um, and, uh, sort of what we can find on the internet, put it all together in a, in a map, sort of, uh, have the map build itself.
Speaker: and update itself at a regular cadence, and that was extremely useful for us to find the Beppu spot in the end. We identified a few different properties we were interested in using our own map, and then it was just so much fun browsing this map, looking at other places around the country, and just being amazed at the prices.
Speaker: Just to make it clear, as opposed to Cheap Houses Japan, which is a fantastic service and we cooperate with them as well, as opposed to Cheap Houses Japan, which is a hand curated newsletter of listings that he goes and digs up himself, you're actually automating the whole thing, right?
Speaker: Exactly. So we're scouting listings from existing Japanese Realtor websites, putting them all together into this user interface that's very similar to Zillow or Redfin, pre -translating descriptions, showing prices in US dollars. We're going to open up some other currencies too. And just making it a very, I would say like Western internet experience when you're browsing for homes and it just has been
Speaker: kind of taking off recently and we're just, yeah, having a lot of fun along the way, building it. So how often or is it constantly online? How often does the system update new listings? Every 24 hours at the moment.
Speaker: Okay. And do these come from just the major real estate portal websites or do you also scar the Acia banks or smaller agencies? So the major ones at the moment, but whatever the major ones have publicly available is what we're pulling and presenting on our website as well.
Speaker: There are Akia banks out there. It just takes some time to write some code to ingest all that information that's publicly available out there. Potentially in the future, we'd open up to Akia banks. But for the moment, we're only looking at two different Japanese real estate publicly available websites. The rest of them are very fragmented and completely different formats, aren't they?
Speaker: they're all fragmented in completely different formats and even within themselves, they're different formats. So it is a little bit difficult to, or it's time consuming to write the code, to gather all that information. I do know that, yeah, cheap house in Japan, I think he does go and pull from many more sources than we do. So if you, yeah. Painstakingly manual labor, but yes, he does an amazing job actually.
Speaker: Yeah. Shout out to cheap house of Japan. I think the curation is, you know, we're, we're different products at the end of the day where the curation of going through these listings and finding these gems on these smaller sites is where, you know, there's a different audience for both, uh, while ours is kind of more volume, uh, you know, there's value in both and I, I, I'm still a subscriber too.
Speaker: So Akia Mart is not exactly limited to Akia, is it? I mean, there are some Akias on the major portals, but it's definitely going to be all properties all around the country, right?
Speaker: Correct. It started out as only pretty much Akiyas and properties. I think under the, when I first, when me and Takei first built this and we're looking at it just ourselves, I think it was only houses valued under maybe like 15 or $20 ,000 US. So yeah, most likely abandoned Akiyas. Oh, the Shacks in the Woods kind of thing. Okay. Shacks in the Woods. Yeah. We've expanded since then to include the full range of price, price range.
Speaker: Yeah, we're, we're considering adding other kind of asset classes, maybe condos and apartments. We realize that something, but yeah, in our version one, we've just strictly single family or eco dot at this point. Um, and as a step one, and with that, we are planning to add a couple more, hopefully, uh, if you are an Accumart user, we're open to feedback as well. So whatever people want to see, we want to make sure we're building something for them. Um, are you in a position where you can share your screen so people can have a look at what the actual product looks like?
Speaker: Yeah. Let's do it. Let me give you permission to do that. Give me a second. Joey, you want to share or you want me to share? Go for it, Takei. OK. I can narrate. OK, you narrate. I will share the screen. Go for it. OK, here we go. What we got here, Joey? So this is Aki and Mart. We're looking at featured listings under $20 ,000 US at the moment. So these feature listings are compiled. Me and Takei go through.
Speaker: and like listings and then when they get liked, they get placed in our featured listing. So this is, the featured listing is essentially just properties that me and Take like or think, you know, are immediately livable for this price range is also a key factor. Our personal house that we bought was not immediately livable. So that is something we look at when we're adding to this list.
Speaker: So this is more of the price range that we bought our house in. Our house was $42 ,000 U .S. Again, we're looking at featured listings here. Let's find one that looks interesting, Takei. So this is one that we both personally looked at before and both really like. This is in Shizuoka. Oh, we got a customer who just bought their actually diamond land. Oh, really? Yeah. Okay. It's a resortish kind of community. Yeah. Sorry. Go ahead.
Speaker: Yeah, and I bet most of these homes in that neighborhood have this same view of Mount Fuji. So that's why we really like this one. And I think that this view from Mount Fuji is from the bathroom, which has onsen water. Yeah, you see the two different taps there. So one is the onsen water, one's the not onsen water. Yeah, this seems like a very, I think nice house, immediately livable. According to my,
Speaker: I, as if you have a much more trained eye than I do, so maybe you have different thoughts on it, but Mount Fuji Views, Shizuoka's a great place, Onsenwater, and I think the price is pretty right, yeah, 40 ,000 cheaper than what we purchased our house for, so. Yeah, I would imagine, does the system also pool monthly fees, monthly or annual fees, if there are any of those?
Speaker: If there are, we're not pulling them at the moment. There's a lot more information we could be compiling and putting on here. And as the single software engineer at the moment, I'll get to it, but at the moment. But what you've done is remarkable, man. I mean, for people, we send people to Japanese websites and explain to them how to Google translate and what kind of words in kanji to look out for. And you've taken all of that out of the equation completely. That's amazing work.
Speaker: Yeah, I think, um, some other things that we need to add here are clearly like the square footage. Um, uh, what was else? Oh, if, yeah, if it's occupied or not, that's a big one. Some of these houses have tenants in them sometimes, like the owner change properties. So I think there are some very important things that we need to add. One of the FAQs we typically get is Joey, how do, how's this exchange rate? Is this a live exchange rate? Is this a static? How are we pulling this number? It's it's live. So once, when you click on a listing, it's, it's pulled live.
Speaker: the median rate. So by the time you transfer, it will probably be a bit less than that, right? Sorry. Yeah. So it would be whatever, I think it's, I pull from a source that gets it up the hourly tick. So whatever that hourly tick is recorded as, that's what I'm pulling. So yeah. Okay. It could be about an hour old potentially. Yep. And then what, so the system as it is, what we're looking at now is, is that free or is that already a subscriber access kind of thing?
Speaker: So this is so everything we've looked at so far is completely free. So our featured listings are free for the full price range. You have all those filters that Taki just showed you right there.
Speaker: And, uh, okay. Yeah. Now he's looking at all listings. So this is when, uh, we introduced the paywall. So what we have for free is all featured listings from zero yen to, you know, the most expensive property under featured. And then for all listings, um, we're offering, uh, everything under $20 ,000 for free as well. So if you want to start looking at properties above $20 ,000, that's when we've introduced the paywall. Uh, and we're asking for $15 a month at the moment. Um, and.
Speaker: Yeah, I believe, you know, especially if you're looking to buy a house, you know, fifteen fifteen dollars compared to the purchase price of your house. I think it's a good good price. And then we interrupt this broadcast to tell you about Tokyo Family Stays. They're a short term rentals company in Tokyo and they offer a home away from home experience, which is just perfect for remote working, quarantining, if that's still a thing, or if you just need somewhere quiet to get away from the world.
Speaker: They offer a variety of options for families, corporate relocations or even if you're simply transitioning between homes in Tokyo. The properties are super comfortable, tastefully furnished, fully equipped with all amenities and they accommodate up to 10 people. So really the only thing you'll need to bring with you is your toothbrush and maybe a change of clothes.
Speaker: They come with fast unlimited wireless internet, dedicated workspaces and fully equipped kitchens, and they're just a delight to stay in. Fantastic alternative to Japanese business hotels, which if you've ever stayed in one you probably know, they're tiny, they're noisy, fine for a night or two if you're on your own, but longer term or with a family you'll probably feel you're in a jail cell very quickly in a Japanese business hotel. So if you want to give yourself a sense of space and freedom by renting a real home,
Speaker: with comfortable western beds, including all the necessities like baby bedding, children's toys, high chairs, etc. You definitely want to reach out to Tokyo Family Stays. They've been at it for over a decade. They're a fully licensed Minpaku or short -term stay operator. And as a special bonus for our viewers and listeners, they're also throwing in a breakfast basket, upon arrival, for anyone who books and mentions the Japan Real Estate Podcast or NTi.
Speaker: And not only for guests, if you're a property owner, you've got an investment property that you want to tweak for higher profit, or a holiday home that you want to rent out when you're not using it via short -term stays, drop them a line today, see how they can help you maximize your property's income. And again, as a special bonus to our viewers and listeners, they're also offering a free audit of your existing short -term stay listings without any obligation whatsoever.
Speaker: So feel free to reach out to them at tokyofamilystays .com. Well worth a visit. And again, if you're in the market for a family home in or around the Tokyo metropolitan area, Emile's your man. Don't be shy to reach out to him as well at sales at realestate .jp. And now back to the podcast. And then we have what do people. Sorry. Go ahead, Taki.
Speaker: Oh, uh, we have over half of half a million listings at this point. And again, it's constantly refreshing, but with the old access pass basically gets you access to all those listings that we have. Yep. And the half a million for it's a lot of listings.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And do, okay. So once people are actually getting a bit more curious about a particular property and they click on it, do they get what? Do they get the original Japanese listing so that they can try and contact the agent or how does that work?
Speaker: We're working with actually Ziv and NTI to create some education. I know this space, a lot of these folks that are first coming to our site are looking at the cheapest of properties and are never been to Japan. So one of the things we've actually done is we have a free consultation. So this consultation goes directly to Joey and I.
Speaker: This is strictly education. We want to make sure that if you have questions about buying for the first time or want to learn about our experience, that there's an educational resource. We unfortunately can't contact the agent for you, but that's where our boots on the ground, NTI, AKA Ziv, and you guys come in. So typically the workflow would be they contact us. We kind of do
Speaker: Uh, you know, fill in, do the education part, just kind of make sure that they're serious. And then if we do get indication that someone is serious, we pass them off to you guys who brings them through the rest of the process. But supposing, I mean, we always love to take people's money. Don't get wrong. But supposing somebody is actually either in Japan or at least fluent in Japanese or has a Japanese spouse, there is the option for them to contact the agent directly, right?
Speaker: Yes. They could click right here on realtor's website, which will bring them to the listing. Um, yeah. So if they prefer to go that, that route, uh, that is definitely something they can do.
Speaker: Okay, that's amazing. So we've discussed a little bit about features and other data that's coming soon. What kind of spin -offs do you see on that one? Will you have one specializing on, I don't know, you've mentioned condos, Taki, but maybe investment properties, luxury properties, land, I don't know, what's in the works?
Speaker: Yeah, we got a Halloween themed one coming. There are actually ghost houses and cursed houses. Joey, take it away. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we haven't done any serious, more in a brainstorming phase here right now, but I know someone that actually I met at the J -Rep conference back in February who believes he can
Speaker: very accurately identify ghost homes based on based off of the listings. So wait, sorry, just to clarify for me, you're not talking about Jigabook in a house where somebody died, you're talking about an actual haunted house. But so in this case, I do mean, I do mean like a house where someone did die slash. Oh, yeah, there are websites for those. Yeah.
Speaker: Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're thinking about doing like a little, I don't know, sort of fun, either part of a newsletter or feature them or something here, right? Because when we first started this journey too, we were looking at some house in Kamakura and then we, I guess we found some form online that was discussing it and everyone was like, Oh, it's a, it's a murder house. It's a murder house. So I don't know. It's sort of, sort of interesting to think about. So that'll be the Halloween edition. Other things as well. Uh, we're thinking about putting in, Joey and I, one of our big,
Speaker: features we were looking for was on some water. Uh, we unfortunately didn't get it in this most recent house, but that is something we're thinking about and making like more specific type filters. So filtering out places that have onsen water in the house or places that are close to surf spots and kind of things like that ski holiday homes, ski holiday homes, surf places, hiking spots. So trying to go around that. And also it seems like we've got a lot of feedback on.
Speaker: People need education on what the prefectures are and what they're there for. So I think that's something we're going to do as well. Um, as you can see, yeah, with, with the pro account, we have all listings. It's just like, we have so many listings. Um, as you zoom in, there'll be more as well. But one of the filters, it's definitely is like, Hey, uh, what activities are correlated with this areas? And can we filter that are things on the roadmap?
Speaker: Yeah. And just, just to add on, on what you asked us there as if, are we going, uh, are we thinking about condos? Are we thinking about land? We're open to those opportunities right now. We're sort of trying to figure out what our customer base is interested in. Uh, so if anybody listening, um, it feels very strongly about wanting, uh, you know, to search for condos or search for land or search for investment properties. Um, that's the type of feedback we're looking for to help guide the direction of, of Akiya Martin.
Speaker: Yeah. And putting our tech hat on, you know, I think one of the things that we have a unique access to is clean structured data. I don't know if anyone in the Japanese real estate game is really looking at like, where are the new listings coming up at? Where are they coming down? Unfortunately, we can't do.
Speaker: like an estimate or as estimate as we have here in the States. But we're trying to look at the data as well of like, what are some of the hotspots? How fast are listing staying on the market? Are some, some features we're trying to build a little bit more insight and be smarter about, you know, where to invest, especially in providing those insights to people that want them. I guess as AI becomes more advanced, that'll be a lot easier for you to do, right?
Speaker: Oh, so, so AI could be another thing too, because again, as talking mentioned with the data, we have access to all these translated, uh, listing descriptions in Japanese too. And we could probably build some sort of, uh, integration with AI where we just plug that in and someone could type in, I'm looking for a property by a river and the house, you know, is over 60 years old or something like that. And potentially it could return listings. Um, yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: I was just going to say, uh, based on, again, something else on the data insights. If you, I just want to see if it's still there, if you go to slash popular. So one thing I noticed with insights here. So this is just, um, where, yeah, go all listings. Sorry. Let me go. Popular again.
Speaker: So this is, so this is just a sneak peek at where people are liking properties on AccuMart. And I saw a really interesting pattern the other day. If you hit filters, Takei, and then turn off the under 20 K hit reset all filters.
Speaker: I saw an interesting pattern. I guess it's not so much here anymore. But around the sort of Toyama area, I was seeing a lot of interest. I guess there's a lot of interest in Nagano. But here, again, you're sort of seeing that we can kind of get a little bit of data insights where people are interested in properties. Hopefully, we can tease some better insights in the future. But I don't see too much of a pattern right now.
Speaker: We'll get there. This phenomenal stuff. I can stare at this man for days. This is awesome.
Speaker: Yeah, it's a lot of fun. We like, uh, I know the luxury market was something we initially looked at it. We know that's a very, very niche spot, especially in Tokyo. Uh, I know a lot of those listings don't even get to show up here, but for fun, we, you know, we love to highlight stuff that are, you know, if you had $2 million, what could that get you in Japan? And it's, it's amazing to see some of the cool architectural buildings. So that's other stuff, similar to how Airbnb highlights some stuff we would watch at the moment. Okay. No, it's, it's, uh, let's see.
Speaker: $2 million. Okay. Ooh, there's a spot. Wow. $3 million gets you to pull like, I'm not sure it's 3 million, but this is, what is, what is this a little stage?
Speaker: Anyways, yeah, it's a lot of fun. I sometimes I just like browsing too, you know, what's I sometimes try to go very specialized. Like I'm like, okay, what is in the like 30 to 40 K range? So not a crazy range means I can, might be able to afford a second one 30, 40 K range built before 1920. So like, okay, old castle kind of style kind of thing.
Speaker: or, uh, and, and just seeing what comes up or, you know, potentially deals under 20 K, but built after the year 2000. So I'm hoping like, okay, modern build, but for a cheap price, are there any searches? Yeah, these new searches is cool. I can't wait to see what you'll come up with next. Well, thank you. Thank you very, very much. And, um, you're also going to be a sponsor of the podcast, which means that people will get a discount if they sign up with the Akiyama, right? Yes, that is correct. Okay.
Speaker: So we'll have all of that. I think when we publish this episode, we'll already add your ad as sponsor and that'll give people the details of how and where they can log in and apply for that discount. Perfect. Yeah. And feel free, anyone listening to contact us directly with feedback, we're, we're kind of again in that ideation phase. So open to hearing what you guys want to see in this product. And yeah, definitely use that, use that promo code, take a look at Accumart Pro. It's a lot of fun. And yeah, we look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker: Good stuff. Thanks for your time, guys. Cool. Thank you. Thank you, Ziv. So there you have it. Akiya Mart. Talk about a much -needed innovation, right? Can't wait to see what Joey and Takeo will come up with next and how this product or range of products will further develop. So watch this space for more. And as mentioned, don't be shy to mention the Japan Real Estate Podcast. If and when you're ready to subscribe to the platform, we're certainly more than happy to be collaborating with them and their members, and we will be following them very, very closely.
Speaker: Now before we go, we're also as always going to tell you and also link to our other sponsors website. That's Hiroshi Shimizu, immigration lawyer and administrative scrivener. If you're thinking about moving here on a more permanent basis or you're already in Japan on some sort of a temporary visa and you want to switch to a longer term or permanent one,
Speaker: or if you're considering setting up a local company or a branch office of a foreign company and you've got any sort of business or visa related inquiries or even if you just want to find out what your options are on any of these topics, feel free to contact Hideoshi Shimizu. You can find him at japanimmigrationexperts .com
Speaker: and he can help you set up a company, apply for any kind of visa, or just provide you with the best advice and extremely affordable consultation related to these topics. And he's already done that for many of our listeners. So feel free to reach out to him. Again, that's japanimmigrationexperts .com and you'll be well on your way.
Speaker: And that's it from us for today folks. Hope you've enjoyed this episode of the Japan Real Estate Podcast. Do share it with your networks and please let us know what you think. So leave us a short rating or review on the iTunes Store, on Spotify or just drop us a line in the comment section or wherever you might have found this episode. We love hearing from you. Hope to have you with us again next time and until then have a great day or night ahead. Yudashiku!
