Transcript
Speaker: One day we decided, like, we're little jet lagged. Like, Joey, let's just wake up really early and we'll bring in some... Did we bring music in there? I thought it was at night. Was it in the morning? Maybe it was night. It was either really late and night. We're like, okay, no one is going to be in here. The lighting's so bad in this onsen. It's like hospital lighting. So we bought this light, this LED light that can change colors. And we got, like, a nice...
Speaker: yellow, orange hue, we put that on. I think we played a little music or something like that too. And we were like, maybe, don't know, we're getting butt naked in the water. And this is maybe one of the first times we were there and like, we locked the door, but then we quickly, I think maybe a couple minutes later, this old guy opened the door.
Speaker: looked around like super, super confused. He'd probably been going to this onsen for at least 10 to 20 years. And he just sees these two foreigners with this little lamp that's orange. Mood music. And what did he say? He said something. He's just like, and i don't remember.
Speaker: I don't remember. And then we're like, shizu gomen nasai.
Speaker: Welcome back, everybody. This is one of the most specialist episodes ever. Episode 100.
Speaker: We have made it to an episode 100, Joey, of the Buying a House in Japan podcast. Did you say that No, I didn't. But everyone, you're here listening to the Buying House in Japan podcast, I'm your host, Joey, joined by the other host of this podcast, Take. And this is episode 100. We made it but but bo We don't have the air horns on this current recording setup, but we are recording live from our house in Tokyo, Tama Base Camp. Joey, are we made sure to be here for the 100th episode. We typically record separately. I am in usually in California, and Joey's in Nova scotiava Scotia, Canada.
Speaker: so This, I mean, 100, you know, it's a nice round number, but also when we started this podcast, Taget said that he read a statistic somewhere that, I don't know, 99% of podcasts never make it past episode 13. You know, people start it, they try it and they just can't, you know, keep going. So not only is this, you know, a nice round number, but it is evidence that, you know, of the grind that we put in continue this podcast.
Speaker: It's interesting when we started this podcast, we really did not have expectations of people listening to It it was more like, let's document the home purchasing process when we bought our first property in Beppu.
Speaker: Turns out we have a lot of listeners right now. We are, i think we're probably getting at least... maybe close to thousand people listening to each one of our episodes, which blows in my mind still that we have maybe a couple of fans out there.
Speaker: Butch, by the way, if you have been a fan, you've been listening to our podcast, we are trying to make it to a hundred likes on Spotify. So we're at 62. So pretty far away, but I'm talking to you listener. If you've been listening to us and not have not hit that like button, please do us a favor. We want to see if we can get close to a hundred on after this episode.
Speaker: Rate us five stars. Ring the bell icon. i don't know Spotify has bell icon, but you you guys know what to do. Yeah. right, Joey. Let's crack these beers. We're sitting together with... ah I think we started one of our first podcasts with beer, so here we go. Ooh, ASMR right there.
Speaker: Speaking of our first podcast, I think our first podcast was... eight things to do, eight steps to buying a house an Akiya in Japan. And we have, not we should listen. So we're going to do some driving on this trip, but but we should listen to it maybe in the car while we're driving just to know how cringy it is and see if we agree with our own advice way back then.
Speaker: A hundred episodes ago. Good, good stuff. Joey's drinking this, um, beer in Japan where has like the tear off lid and you have to drink it really fast, but it's got like the draft beer foam. I got the Ebisu. So, so All right, Joey, lot to discuss today. A lot's been happening.
Speaker: All right. First thing on the docket of, like once again, episode 100. Yeah, let's talk about what we did today, actually. Okay. Actually, before that, if you are a new listener here, this is your first episode.
Speaker: little bit of a quick intro. Joey and I, over the past two years, have jumped straight into the Japanese abandoned home space. As the title alludes, we have bought to not one, but now six houses in Japan.
Speaker: All sorts of different messed up properties to cool properties. And I'm happy to say we are recording in one of our, in our third, second property. was the second property? This was the second one. Sagi mentioned, some are complete teardowns. Some were turnkey properties and some were in between.
Speaker: We are crazy bastards that have bought all over Japan. tough Our first one down in Beppu, which is a hot spring town, and to where we're sitting today in our Tokyo house, which is in a city called Tama, about 40 minutes west of central Tokyo.
Speaker: Hokkaido, all the way up to Hokkaido. Yeah, and it's like our cheapest property we $3,500. The most expensive one we bought is about $114K. So it's been a journey, man.
Speaker: Like really thankful to you, Joey, actually. ah Who would have thought we were college friends and we are now business partners and full-time with this Akimart business, which is crazy to think.
Speaker: Thankful for you too. I feel like that we went on like a trip together before we decided to dive into this. And I feel like I don't know if it was words of wisdom or words of recklessness, but you were like, what's the worst that can happen? Like you're like worst case, we look back on this and it's like a funny story or when, you know, this was before we had purchased our first home and knew anything about this. And we hadn't even talked to the intermediary that was helping us with. And we were trying to figure out if we were really going to do this. We had just both been laid off from our jobs.
Speaker: Uh, and I think. Yeah, words of wisdom slash recklessness, like looking back, are we going, i no, it wasn't like, what's the worst that can happen? It was more like, let's say that it fails.
Speaker: Are we still going to have enjoyed this journey? And I think we were both wanted to spend more time in Japan going forward anyways. And this kind of gave us a reason to continue going back to Japan. And I think like, I was like, you know what?
Speaker: Yeah, I think even worst case scenario, we're still gonna enjoy this adventure. If you were a listener and you're kind of in the same crossroads of just like my advice to everyone is just do it, you know, just try it out. Like, what's the worst again will happen.
Speaker: You have an idea for startup, you have an idea for a podcast to like, we kind of just threw caution to the wind on a lot of these things. I think a lot of people can get stuck in. now is not the right time or you know analysis paralysis we're trying to get too many ducks aligned first yeah i think we've really just been hair on fire iterating doing new things building and uh it never feels like there's a dull moment i'd say we're always like spinning 10 000 plates it feels like but it's it's a lot more fun than working for someone else or doing yeah working under someone
Speaker: That's our journey. Six properties in Japan at the moment. Sold one, actually. Right now it's five. We also run the Akiyamart website. So if you Google the word Akiyamart, I'm sure we're going to rank in the search results there. Check it out. You can browse properties um and we can also help you buy.
Speaker: We work with... ah like five or six different agents in Japan right now, all licensed that um we can help with this property in your name. Yeah. End of the day too. want to just emphasize we're two regular dudes. I'd say we're kind of like tech bros in our mid thirties, frustrated that we couldn't buy anything in the U S and came and looked at Japan and there's just such a big opportunity here that there's also a lot of opportunity because there's a lot of friction.
Speaker: But this has been so much fun being able to play with different things here, do kind of just things you couldn't do in the U.S. So, all right, Joey, that's enough about us. What did we do today in Tokyo?
Speaker: So Taka and i ah we went to go look at a laundromat for sale today. The quick backstory is again, sick. We purchased six properties in Japan.
Speaker: Feel like we understand the Akiya world a little bit, and we're definitely going to keep pushing forward there. maybe leaning more on selling properties um as we consolidate our quiver of of um homes that we purchased here. But the next frontier for us is buying a small business in Japan.
Speaker: um We've been talking to podcast listeners, you guys. We've been holding live events um and kind of pitched this idea around of buying small businesses in Japan. And overwhelmingly, people were...
Speaker: One, very supportive, but also a lot of excitement ah there. And a lot of other people were like, oh, could you help me buy a business in Japan too? Or you guys should do this. So we decided to go for it. And it has not been easy so far. It's been very hard. It's been very hard. Sorry, we can dive into that later. But yeah, long story first, we went to go actually look at the laundromat today, the GORE coin laundry, as they call it here.
Speaker: To give a little more context, our last episode, we talked about this. We had actually recorded that a couple weeks ago, and we were since that recording, we had put an offer on the laundromat. It had actually fallen through because there was someone else first in line.
Speaker: So we'd really lost hope over the past three weeks. then Yeah, I gave up. I thought we were like, all right, i you know focus more focus on Akia. Yeah, we're like, okay, we're not we're not going to do this. ah you know But literally yesterday, or maybe the day before, I was about to fly out from California to Narita, and we got this text message from someone who's helping us here, and he's like, we're back.
Speaker: it's The coin laundry in Tama is back. We're so back. And you know even rewinding this even further, I think at the start of this journey, I gave Joey, or we told Joey to read this book by Rick Rubin. I think the act of... like the The creative The creative act of being or something like that. Oh, yeah, yeah. you know so one big signal we when we read the book, Joey actually bought a counterfeit, weird like communist manifesto now version. No, it was more like a white supremacist.
Speaker: A knockoff of the Rick Rubin book. But anyways, the Rick Rubin book, a lot of it... He talks a lot about... following the signs and like life will point out these signals that are just like okay and that's unusual that that happened a couple times and i think with this laundromat that has happened a few times uh we'd always talked about like ah be cool to own a cash business whether that be vending machines or coin laundry joey worked with a designer and we actually made a coin laundry short like a couple months ago that was like, um it'd be cool if we we had this, but had nothing had happened. And then think one thing led to the next and we're we're here and we went to the coin laundry place and saw it in person. Yeah. So check out the merch store, everybody. you don't have to. mean, you can buy a t-shirt if you want. It would help us support. It would help support us. And we make like $2 off each shirt, to be honest. We make like $2. But the point of what I'm trying to say is check out the merch store. You'll see the...
Speaker: coin laundry, the laundromat t-shirt design there, the thought behind the t-shirt, it says on the t-shirt, start something small. The idea being that, oh, you know, property in Japan for yeah people living and working in North America is affordable right now. And you can try interesting things with your properties. Start a cafe or start a laundromat or, you know, you can start something small, try something out because the barrier to entry is much smaller. so that's the idea behind the coin laundry shirt.
Speaker: And then Next step was we started exploring this mergers and acquisitions small businesses website, and there just happened to be this coin laundry for sale near the house that we're in right now in Tama. It's literally a five-minute drive away.
Speaker: And in true, like, Rick Rubin fashion, and maybe this is us throwing it out there, like, did a couple LinkedIn posts, put some shots out there, and we've had overwhelming support where, like, The cast of crew that are going to help us do this have lined up very, very well.
Speaker: Yeah. It's like really cannily well. Like what? We have the right person for operator. We have the right person who maybe wants to do the renovation or design for us. We have a couple of friends who have bought franchises that are kind of competitors. So it's interesting. Emerges as an acquisition lawyer. We just got almost put in touch with today and and our friend is going to reach back out to that. So definitely...
Speaker: Things are aligning. i'd like Just a note on the Rick Rubin thing. like My takeaway from... i haven't finished the book. Actually, I should finish the entire book. But my takeaway from what he's saying is you know life throws these signs at you and you can kind of choose to follow them or not. And Rick's wisdom here is you should follow the signs. I'm not going to say it's the right move or the wrong move, but your life will be more interesting if you follow these signs in life.
Speaker: And i mean, I kind of think that we did that with this Akia journey. Definitely. And it reminds me of this show that I don't think it was like a radio show that was on Canada when I was growing up. can't remember what it was. I think it some Native American comedians, but they always said, stay calm, be brave, wait for the signs.
Speaker: And this is kind of like the signs, you know? We really just followed signs. Like literally every one of our Akia purchases has been like falling on our lap and we're like ah, okay. And we've gone in...
Speaker: I think a considerable amount of pushback from friends and family or just people on network are like, no, that's a stupid idea. And we're not chasing ah ROI for sure. We're not chasing ROI, but it it's happening. You know, like I was able to quit my full-time job and do this, which is cool. And and you as well, we were werere still making a fraction of what we did made with our,
Speaker: Silicon Valley job, but we control our own time and it's been a lot of fun making this business. So if you haven't read the Rick Rubin book, huge plug. I think him as a character such an interesting dude that he's produced so many banger albums without having that like musical background. It's just like, you need to do this or need to do that. So I think again, we we we follow his wisdom. It's gotten us here.
Speaker: And we are about to make another, many people would consider a mistake in purchasing this this coin laundry, but I think it's the right right move for us. The t-shirt, the cast of characters lining up perfectly, the house, that not the house, the like losing the coin laundry because we ended up being second in line. And then that person, the first in line applicant deciding not to go through with it. And now we're first in line, like kind of just fate.
Speaker: Yeah, we, so funny. So going back to what we did today, we you met with our potential operations manager there, Linda, the legend. She operates our Tama house. That's one of our neighbors.
Speaker: And we met up with her daughter. We ate tonkatsu. And then we went straight to the coin laundry place to check it out. And Just to kind of paint a picture over audio here, it's got like five, six parking spots in front of it. It's a very clean coin laundry.
Speaker: ah In Japan, I think people take very good care of these places. They don't get too trashed. There's like maybe like... five to six washers, five to six dryers, and but they're all retro.
Speaker: It's worn, I would say. like it's it's It's clean, but it's well-worn. Yeah, you'll see like retro posters. like You'll see like an ampam, man, kid's corner carpet that looks a little sketch.
Speaker: But the tables, there's been, I don't know. It's been used. It's been used, yeah, well-used, and could use a little bit of a refresh for sure. Yeah. So it's, but it's cool. There's like two neon signs outside. There's a big billboard and it's just, yeah, we got a billboard. We, there's a lot of space and we're just like, oh shoot, what can we do with this? And if you told me, if you talked to my like 10 year old self, like, do you think coin laundries are sexy? I'd be like, what the hell? No.
Speaker: But now I'm like, cash business coin laundry machine and our laundry business in Japan. This is pretty, pretty dope. So what is our, what's our goal for this coin laundry? So there is ah a little bit of a, like a three year timeline. That's when the lease renews. So kind of an opportunity ah for us and for the landlord to, to exit basically at three years. So what what do we want to accomplish at the end of three years here?
Speaker: I think it's learning the business. For us, I think it's really gaining experience. Like we really are going against some headwinds here. I don't think the business is profitable, but I do think we will learn more than how much it costs to enter here.
Speaker: ah We will get a lot of infrastructure in our our Japanese business. We'll learn how to navigate and acquire. I think that's probably the biggest thing. Like, how do we acquire a business as foreigners is probably the biggest takeaway I think we hope to get.
Speaker: And how can we maybe help others is another secondary. As you were speaking, I was just thinking about walking around the coin laundry today and we're going to be collecting a lot of Hyakuen Dama, like 100 yen coins. Like there was no, um ah like you can't pay with credit card anywhere. This is a true, this is an actual cash business, like true in the cash sense.
Speaker: If you've been to Japan, they're very, very much on a coin and cash kind of currency, paper currency payment method. Still, there is the introduction of like Suica or Pasmo, which is like a tap card and Apple Pay is coming, in but still very much for like a first world country. I think very currency based.
Speaker: This coin laundry business is all cashed. We're obviously going to report 100% of our profits hundred percent to the government, but I am curious, like in the world, let's just take America for a second, in the world of cash businesses in America, let's say laundromats, and vending machines, et cetera, like what yeah on average in those industries, how much is reported to the government and how much is- A fraction.
Speaker: Yeah, 50%? I don't It seems like all the really, really dank restaurants always are like cash businesses. And you're like, shit, got to get cash for that burrito or something. But I wonder if there's a stat out there. I would bet you it's like 60% to 70% is reported, if that.
Speaker: Like my barber, only cash business. Like how much of that? I think another goal, I think, for this business, so it's the business isn't so hot, I would say.
Speaker: um we they We got a tiny look at the financials, but it was just kind of like a really crappy spreadsheet that the owner sent over to us. So not very well organized, but it looks like they're operating at making about a million yen profit.
Speaker: per year. Now, a million yen is like $6,000 USD. This is not a lot of money. Woof. Yeah. yeah Purchase price is around $30,000 and there's going to be maybe another 10... 20K, would almost say. 15, yeah, 20K in closing costs to get this business. But I think our goal that we should have is triple profit by the end of three years. Just throwing a dart.
Speaker: Throwing a dart at the board. Why not? Why not... quadruple. Triple profit every year is what I meant. Triple profit every year. Okay. We're really like talking out of our ass right here. I know that's possible. let's say Let's say trip one year, triple profit.
Speaker: I mean, that's a good good early goal here. Good early goal. shake goal shoot for the star Shoot for the moon. So it's 1 million yen a year. and three So let's say we triple profit. That's 3 million yen a year. That's like $20,000. $20,000? Okay. Okay. I mean, again, we i like to pitch this. We are customer zero. We're doing this for all you listeners who want to gain from the experience. Maybe we start a Kickstarter or something like that.
Speaker: Yeah, put your you get your name up on the wall or something like that. Or your photo, you get a Polaroid photo. thing oh Yeah, something like that. I don't know how many people are really going to come out to Tama again. it's It's a trek from central Tokyo. But we have a lot of fun ideas for the property or for the business.
Speaker: But I think we've got an advice. Shout out to a couple folks who reached out and given us advice on this. But we're going to keep the business just like as is. We thought about doing like the day zero of day one of buying a cash business in Japan. But, you know, I think we're just going to keep it, just acquire it and let it run for a little bit. yeah we got it we got to figure out cool ways to triple profit.
Speaker: One of our goals of going today was also to understand like the demographics. So the demographic of Tama city is is considered like a bed town, which is considered in Japan as a commuter town. So a lot of folks are come down coming into central Tokyo.
Speaker: The trains are are super crowded, but with that, people still need laundry. And it's comprised of, Tama is comprised of a lot of big apartment buildings where you don't have a laundry machine in your building.
Speaker: Yeah. And um again, the so we asked a bunch of questions to the previous owner. Very brief responses, not a lot of elaboration there. But we did ask like, hey, who are the, ah you know, what's your customer demographic look like?
Speaker: And he said he thinks, again, thanks, and not very not being very, not giving us straight answers here, but single men and housewives. Yeah.
Speaker: And lo and behold, we walked in today. There are two single men just waiting for the laundry. Yep. Good to see that at 2 p.m. in the afternoon, there was still traffic. It's on a main road with parking spots. So...
Speaker: I don't know, we we we went in with Linda and we're just like, Linda, how you feeling about this? She's like, yep, there's a lot of opportunity here. I think we all smelled like this is gonna be fun. I was a little bit nervous when we had lunch. We were like, Linda's not in, we can't be in, but shout out to Linda. She's She's operations. We need someone on the ground operations.
Speaker: Joey, what are the operations like? What do you expect? that needs to be done to keep this business going. Yep. Another question I asked of the current owner is, you know, how much work are you putting in day to day?
Speaker: And he said, oh, I don't show up. there He says, I only go there like every other day. I'll sweep the floors and I'll check the detergent levels. That's about it. You could probably pay someone to do this for two mon or 20,000 month.
Speaker: a month that must Which is incredibly cheap. That must be under the table or something. and It's like $160 a month. Yeah, unreasonably cheap, but also it's low maintenance. And again, for people who have never been to Japan, like the greatest thing is that people really are clean and take care of stuff.
Speaker: I really do believe if you just let this go for a week, it would not be like windows broken, machines on fire kind of thing. So I i think this is one one of the few places in the world that I feel comfortable just like, okay, let's deploy capital.
Speaker: Let's buy this and and let's... Take a chance. When we were thinking about a long time ago, we were thinking about buying land and having a solar farm there and mining Bitcoin on a solar farm. go Retrospectively, man, Bitcoin price has gone up a little. That could have been a really good idea.
Speaker: And as I was looking into it, people that are in the U.S. are doing it. One of the big issues that you need to deal with is security because you know people will come in and steal whatever they can, ah especially if this is an unmanned operation. And so... We thought, oh, well, Japan, we don't have to worry about that because very unlikely someone is going to come and vandalize or try to steal stuff. So again, Tawitake is saying, like, I think we this is a business that I don't feel too worried about security at all.
Speaker: Yeah. And it's great to see that it is operational right now, so we'd be inheriting basically a car that's already running. Car? I mean, as the it's an analogy here. I guess it's still running.
Speaker: But there's a lot of opportunity as we walked in. The lights were terrible. There's this like those fluorescent tubes, and it's like, oh no. And the wallpaper had like handprints on it. that you know Smudges. Outdated signs. and and Yeah.
Speaker: It needs like, ah yeah, and like, look, actually, what would we do? Like pie in the sky renovation? I think like bare minimum, replace the wallpaper or paint over the wallpaper. Yeah. deep clean.
Speaker: It was very clean, but as soon as you start looking between the nooks and crannies between machines or on top of machines, like there is a lot of kind of caked on dust that we just want, just get a shop vac and vacuum that out.
Speaker: I think we just put some effort in design, it's going to go a long way. Change the wallpapers very easy, change the light fixtures, change the music in there, put some plants in there, you know, make it a pleasant place you want to go to.
Speaker: Yeah, but Okay, we we we can we have a lot to talk about on this topic, but overall we are going for it, which I'm pumped to say. Hopefully, please, if you're a listener, don't snipe this from under us.
Speaker: No, actually, we're too far in, I think. So just to reiterate, we're first in line now, but we were second in line and we had given up. Japan's interesting. This the second time we tried to outbid somebody. So actually on this Tama House, we were second in line a long time ago and we're like, no, no, no, we like this this is that because we had been looking for a while.
Speaker: We tried to outbid and the real estate agent was like, no, that's not how it works in Japan. You got to wait your turn. um Like i'm not even going to send your offer to the seller. um And then the same thing with this coin laundry. We were second in line for so long we had given up and then now we're first in line. So you can't can't outbid.
Speaker: um it It goes like ah in order of the applicants that reach out and we are now currently first in line. So I don't think anybody can snipe us. Whew. Let's go Japan.
Speaker: ah Very last point to this for listeners who have ideas on what we should do with this coin laundry, hit us up. Contact at akia-mart.com. I know there's a lot of things. We can make this a pop-up coffee store. We can make this like an internet cafe. We can make it really trendy and stuff, but just know it is in a...
Speaker: Commuter town, average demographics are probably like 40 year old male and female, some single males, some housewives doing laundry. It's not in like a hustling and bustling place, but a lot of opportunity, a lot of creative fun, I think with like designs and stuff that we can do.
Speaker: But at the core, we do need to think, how do we, how do we get more traffic in here? How do we make some profit? How do we ah make this a better coin laundry experience for people too? Okay, moving on to our final segment here. Retrospective.
Speaker: The past 100 episodes, along the past 100 episodes, past two years, going on this journey. All right, Takei, I'll hit you with a question. Okay, ready, baby. Most memorable character along this entire journey.
Speaker: Wow, that's a hard one, man. Most memorable? There's been so many memorable characters here. We've had some on the podcast. I would say, give me a second here. Most memorable...
Speaker: Okay, I'm going to pass this back to you. Do you have a most memorable character? Sato-san. Sato-san? Is he the most memorable? Sato-san. Who's Sato-san? Sato-san was our um contractor in Beppu.
Speaker: Long story short, um we he kept coming up with wilder and wilder stories of why the renovation is delayed or why he can't be there. First one was he got fell off a ladder at his mom's place and got some rebar impaled in his leg. And then the second one was he...
Speaker: got arrested and put in jail for a long time. I don't understand. Something with his ex-wife or something with a different client. And then he was like, you can't send me any. play He was like, they took my phone.
Speaker: They're watching my bank account. You can't send any money the bank account. Like, i need cash. And he just got out of jail and needed cash. um And then what else? the legend The legend of Sato. This guy, again, if you are buying a place in Japan, you expect contractors to be follow what you think Japanese work ethic is and an honor is, it's it's a little bit different. we We've been, unfortunately, surprised by a few characters along this journey unlike who've been kind of really shady.
Speaker: And we've probably gotten scammed a couple times, but whatever. I think... um The character Keaton that we brought talked a little bit about. Like, you know, I don't know we told the full story there, but again, maybe we got scammed. I think Keaton set us up for good.
Speaker: Like, I think in the the end result was good. There's unfortunate circumstances along the way. And I think he's a great character still. But Sato-san, dude's corrupt. Sato-san, someone named YY that we've been talking to or like, you know.
Speaker: yeah i think i think you just know be careful uh when you are dealing with people in japan but joy going back your question i really can't pick one character where there's been just such a fun group of people who have gotten us to this point many podcast listeners we are now good friends with shout to you guys and and again to keep keep reaching out we're we're just two regular dudes happy to meet up um but man it's been and adventure from the past two years i think we've
Speaker: We've made like 100 friends at a minimum in Tokyo around the world, just helping people buy and can could not have done this with the support. So if you are a longtime listener, you have met up with us, you support us in some way. like Thank you so much.
Speaker: I think the short. Thank you, guys. Okay, Joey, back to you. top story or start up Top memorable moment or story of these past two years since starting the this whole business.
Speaker: Wait, i want to you actually mentioned this story earlier today, but so I'm going to say the- Are you taking that one? no, no. I'm going to let you tell the story, but I'll say the story, which is the Jisoji Onsen. when We turned the lights off, but I'll let you tell the story. Okay, okay, okay. So set in the scene, we bought our first akiya in a city called Beppu, which is a big onsen town, hot spring town.
Speaker: we think our first week there we got there we found out there's like this local onsen which only residents can use so we're like okay sweet through one i don't know we talked to a couple of neighbors we eventually got access to it and then we we got in there it does not look pretty if maybe you've seen some videos it looks like literally just like a concrete box With fluorescent lights.
Speaker: And we're like, this is not the vibe we're going for. So one day we decided like, we're little jet lagged. Like Joey, let's just wake up really early and we'll bring in some. Did we bring music in there? I thought it was at night. Was it in the morning? Maybe it was night. It was either really late at We're like, okay, no one is going to be in here. The lighting so bad in this onsen. It's like hospital lighting. So we bought this light, this LED light that can change colors. And we got like a nice...
Speaker: yellow orange hue, we put that on. I think we played a little music or something like that too. And we were like, maybe, don't know, we're getting butt naked in the water. And this is maybe one of the first times we were there and like, we locked the door, but then we quickly, I think maybe a couple minutes later, this old guy opened the door.
Speaker: looked around like super, super confused. He'd probably been going to the onsen for at least 10 to 20 years. And he just sees these two foreigners with this little lamp that's orange. Mood music. And what did he say? He said something. He's just like, and i don't remember.
Speaker: I don't remember. And then we're like, just go men aside.
Speaker: And we turned on the, I think we went back to the fluorescent blue light. Unfortunately, Japanese people, they don't question the lighting, I feel like. like yeah must It's both like, you go to like a well-designed Japanese ryokan hotel or onsen, and it's well-designed. The lighting is nice. The ambiance is nice.
Speaker: But then at the same time, you look at Japanese office buildings, and like the lighting is so hot. They do it on purpose in the Japanese office building. Yeah. Or like, i but like, I think in the Jisoji Onsen.
Speaker: They just don't, they just didn't know. They weren't thinking. Yeah. They didn't know. Or it was like cost saving, like all that kind of rolled into one. And so I think they, but I don't think anyone kind of really questions it. And so this guy walks in and it's like different light. Like maybe he thought no one was there, but then he's like, wait, there is some light. Wait, there's people in here. are these gay boys? Yeah, there's music. light.
Speaker: Okay, Joey. Yeah, I think that was a top memory for me. I think it distinctly remembers that like awkward moment, but... Toughest moment, like lowest moment. Okay, pass on to you. Lowest moment, Joey.
Speaker: Lowest moment was, ive you know, I've mentioned this a few times before. it was I think it was when we... I thought we made a big mistake. We bought... it was like, again, a lot of these memories come from the Beppu house. Interesting. I think it was when we bought the Beppu house and we went to go check it out for the first time and we had been driving for...
Speaker: I don't know, nine hour day or something. And how did that, what route did we take actually? We took the longest route. Whatever it was, it was like the longest route. We drove for so long. We drove through Eihime and then we got on a ferry the evening. That was brutal. It arrived in Oita City like 11 p.m. We drive. We get to Beppu at midnight and we're like, let's go see the house first. We were going to go to the hotel, but let's see the house first. Long, long day driving.
Speaker: We get to the Beppu house. It's nighttime. we don't even know that you know we I guess we just assumed the electricity was on. We had no idea. We took the worst road. Like it was the smallest road where it's like a hairpin turn with our with our van. That that was are like, what are we getting into?
Speaker: We, you know, we get to the house. It's hard to park there. We didn't really know how to park yet. And the the yard was yeah hadton had a bunch of garbage everywhere. Get the keys out somehow and like open the door.
Speaker: Difficult. And we get in there. The lights do work, but it's like flickering. Haunted flicker. Haunted house. Kind of smelled musty and dusty and dark and cramped. And, you know, we walked around the house and everything was kind of.
Speaker: dark and, you know, not a good feeling. And I just remember thinking like, man, we made a mistake. Like we made ah a big mistake. And i think, you know, being tired played a lot into it. And kind walked around the house and I don't remember if we were like pointing out negative things or interesting things. I don't even remember what we're doing, but I just remember going back to the hotel afterwards and like, I think we just went to bed. Like, i don't even think we talked about it much. We were just like in our own thoughts.
Speaker: And remember the next morning I just woke up and i was like, all right, we got to make a plan. Like the only way to get out of this ah as hole we've dug for ourselves is like, okay, likeir First thing, we got to make sure there's no bed bugs and it's Tommy Madsen. Damn, that might be my low, actually. I think it was the day after. We were like, okay, we're going to challenge and we're gonna sleep in this house right now. I had been abandoned for, I think, seven months or eight months, so it's not too bad.
Speaker: But we like bought to we bought the futon. We're like, okay, let's check it out. And I think I just were was like tripping out all night that there were these dining, which are these... what what What's the translation of Danny? Like got a bed bug kind of thing that lives in Tatami. Some kind of like flea type of thing. Flea, yeah. yeah I either got bit up or had allergic reaction. i was like, oh my gosh, and like couldn't sleep. And I think we slept in the same room because we thought it was clean. Oh, it was a Tatami. Did we sleep on the old Tatami?
Speaker: we like few we We bought the Danikita. That was a good idea, too. So it's like a do-it-yourself fumigation. It's just like kind of sketchy. And then I think we did it in that room, and for some reason we we thought that room was the safest.
Speaker: Oh, because we didn't sleep in because we almost fell through the floor. yeah. Okay, this has been a fun adventure. I think it also, though, as we help people buy, shout out, we can help you buy a an Akio or any property in Japan for any price, any location with our program called Akio Mart Direct. But anyways, as we help people, like everyone has the same adventure. So I think it is so memorable, though. I i think if we had it easier, it would have been like, oh this is too easy. like I think every property we bought, we've had some kind of like...
Speaker: Oh shit, it's really hot in here. Or like, oh shit, like something's wrong. And I think that's just part of life and part of this whole adventure of doing new things. Yeah, high there's going to be highs, going lows.
Speaker: And I do think like... Your first property is probably going to be a B-grade property. and Maybe you get lucky, you'll get an A. But I do think like that's part of the adventure is buying the B-grade property, figuring it out, and then you know learning from your mistakes. and you know If you want to sell it and buy a different one later, like you know you you'd have gained so much experience from that. and All right, Joey, next question.
Speaker: Highlight of the past two years on after building this, oh like building this business, buying all Zakiya's, traveling all over Japan. I think we've traveled up and down Japan more than anyone I know in the span of these two years.
Speaker: I think highlight for me... I mean, I can't think of one specific moment, but I think like the highlight for me truly is like, i get to visit Japan a lot during the year, you know? And I think that really like kickstarting this business off has allowed that. And going back to before we had bought anything and we were trying to decide like, Hey, do we, do we go on this journey or not? Like, you know, what's the worst that can happen? Like looking back, are we going to have a fun adventure? Like,
Speaker: I think for me, part of this adventure was to, you know, at that time i was like, well, you know, go to Japan at least once a year, you know, going forward in life. And now I'm coming much more frequently. And i think that really is the highlight for me, like having a reason to come back here and being able to do that.
Speaker: Um, I think off that I have more like specific moments, but just generally it's been so dope to make our own business. I think we've learned, we've grown, I think exponentially. I think in these past two years, we've learned more about,
Speaker: I guess like just life I feel like than I have in the past eight or 10 years working in tech. So anyway, like whether be accounting, actually shout out one of the biggest, most influential books to us, profit first.
Speaker: Uh, we read this, it really gave us a a good idea of accounting, but we learned so much about counting. Joey's been building the site from scratch. We learned about marketing. We learned about just like every part of the sales funnel, what do customers want? And it's been,
Speaker: You know, it seems so intimidating from the outside. You're probably thinking this too, like, I'm never going to be that entrepreneurial or be able to do this. I'm like, we, we weren't there two years ago. We definitely were like, working our corporate tech jobs, afraid of getting laid off.
Speaker: Just kind of in, in our little silo. So. I think that's probably been the biggest highlight. Like we've we had a really fun adventure just building a business. Confidence in life, I feel like. Confidence that like you can do try different things in life.
Speaker: Been a lot of fun. Yeah, I think it's if we were to go to bank go bankrupt tomorrow, I think we could probably we could figure something out now. And I feel pretty confident that we have the experiences and learned lessons.
Speaker: Where if we had just stuck, if I just stuck working in the crypto job or you kept working in big tech or something, like we would just get so pigeonholed into what we were doing that I think as human beings in general, you're we are more rounded now.
Speaker: Yeah, confidence. I feel like like that's another thing that I learned. like not I don't want to say it's not hard, but like... doing Trying to get a stranger to pay you money for something, like it's not the hardest thing in the world. like You can do it.
Speaker: Find something of value that you can provide and a stranger will pay you money for it. I think part of that though too is you have to do something different yourself for it to make sense. Like had we not gone against the current a little bit and bought a house in Japan, nobody would have listened to us. So again, I think we are the best stupid bastards that are just doing it.
Speaker: And with that, people are willing to avoid the pain of doing it themselves. And that has proven to yield, i think, Good results for us.
Speaker: All right. What was your highlight? Damn. Highlight. I think
Speaker: i think very early on, Joey had made a prototype of the website. So there's been a couple key moments in the business. I think the first one being... We got a meeting with ah Cheap Houses Japan.
Speaker: yeah. And, you know, at the time, Joey's making this beta site. Cheap Houses Japan was kind of like the gateway into Akia. Many of you probably subscribed to his newsletter. Michael's an awesome guy. And he was, like, open to chatting with us. we're like, what?
Speaker: And we were trying to do a partnership with him. he was the biggest name in the game at that time. was kind of like him and Anton. And now now we're friends with Anton. We're going to record a podcast with him soon. But... We had thought we had made made it when we had gotten these meetings. And I just remember like we had that meeting with him. We're like, oh my gosh. And we went to go grab a beer and we're like so celebration. Like, oh my, we wo how we got detention. We thought we made it. Yeah.
Speaker: And then I think the second one too was really distinctive. Maybe a year ago, we'd been working with this big Japanese company. They'd shown us a lot of interest and like, so we were just driving, I think to Shikoku.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden like, Hey, do you have time to chat? We'd like to invest in your company. And at the time we like really did not think about VC funding or anything. We pulled over to the side of road and the guy's like, hey, our company is very, very interested in investing a lot of money in you. And we're like, what?
Speaker: And I remember, although we didn't actually end up taking that that investment, we just like, we're pulled over off a company and like, oh my gosh, people are interested and think we're doing something good.
Speaker: They want to throw money at us. Yeah. So... I'd say those are our highlights where it was like humbling moments where I thought we were just like a small web website, but we're slowly getting recognition from some of the big players or what the big players we thought at the time were some of like the the most exciting moments, I think, for myself personally.
Speaker: All thought and another one. Go for it. I think we talked about on the – or we recorded a podcast from there. But we basically stayed at Shining-style hotel yeah on this island, Yakushima. I can't remember the name of the hotel, Iwasaki or something along those names. But we show up. It was off-season. of I guess off-season Yakushima is February.
Speaker: We go there, and were like the only people staying in this hotel. It's like maybe like – 200, 300 bedroom hotel. Maybe there was one other person. We we went for a night walk once and we looked at the back of the hotel and I think there was one other room.
Speaker: where a night on It was right next to us. yeah Anyways, we're staying at this hotel and it's just ah this really big hotel and it's just us. And the shining part of it is that it was fully staffed. Like there, there was way, way too many staff for just me and Take and specifically like,
Speaker: in the dining hall, again, so many tables, and it's just us, but there's like eight staff members, like ready to you know, if you you want to order something, they're all in the line at the like far back hall. Just waiting for us. he's Just standing there watching us, like you, and you look at them and like one of them comes over right away.
Speaker: And it was just like this really surreal experience, but I actually really liked that. And in fact, I was like, February, we gotta go back. Cause that was kind of fun We're doing our next company offsite. I think Yakushima. Yakushima has been so cool. All right, Joey. Final segment actually of the podcast of our hundredth episode.
Speaker: Um, we've made it to a hundred episodes here. I believe we will make it to 200. What kind of like, what kind of themes, what would you like to see in these next episodes or, you know, what, what direction do we, do you think we're going to go?
Speaker: Over the course of the next, I guess, how we're doing ah we're doing a podcast episode a week. So what is that? Like almost two years, a year and a half or so. Yeah, we still have a lot of Akiyas and properties. and We have, you know, we've purchased six, we sold one, and we still have five, more to come.
Speaker: So definitely more insight about buying homes in Japan, of course. ah We'll continue down that path. But I think the coin laundry will be mixed in here in our content because obviously that is new and exciting for us and we'll likely be sharing our journey.
Speaker: Yeah. On my side, I think it's crazy. We started our Acumart Direct program about a year ago, literally in this room. We were literally whiteboarding, like how do we show how do we help people? And it's been a really fun journey of like, we're following what the customers want.
Speaker: But I think ah specifically on the purchasing process, we're really, really starting to dissect the pieces and be like, why is it like this? You know? And so i think we've gone from beginners in helping people purchase to closer to intermediate. And we're bringing a different lens on like, can we automate this? Can we make that contract template or something like that? So yeah,
Speaker: I'm perfectly but personally very interested in taking deep dives on certain topics and why they are as they are and and trying to innovate there.
Speaker: If you are currently in our Akiyamart direct process, thank you for being a guinea pig. We are learning a lot. We're close to 100 transactions at but this point from helping people all over the world.
Speaker: And I'm really excited on on keeping... helping people buy. i think every person we've helped buy has been such a cool person. We're building a pretty cool community. So hoping to have more people on here that are relatable to you.
Speaker: But yeah, on Joey's, we're also very interested in the the business purchasing side. oh Okay, man. It's been a good journey. I think overall, 100th episode, we were we were talking about this a little bit. we went We just came back from the Gulf Fringe where if we really got to work on ah on the swing. I'm a little sore, but...
Speaker: A lot of pressure. Like, this is 100th episode. We had been building a pipe here. ah we We have a lot of cool things lined up. One of the weaknesses we have acknowledged is we're not good at marketing, maybe being on camera as much.
Speaker: We are taking the leap. We have two cases in front of us of camera gear. We're going for the video podcast. So... If you're listening on podcast, we will, or sorry, on Spotify or Apple podcast, we will start converting to video format.
Speaker: Uh, we do recognize, although i hate Instagram personally, we need to be doing short form reels to really get the maximum rate share. So we expect some video podcasts coming soon. We have, think a beast mode roster of episodes coming up on this trip where the beginning of our Tokyo trip, but a lot, a lot to be excited about lot of fun collaborations overall.
Speaker: new New t-shirt design coming too. I'm looking at It's on our pretty camera cases. Probably sometime, I don't know, Q4 maybe. We'll release a new t-shirt design as well. Yeah. And then um on this trip, ah we're we release podcast episodes weekly, but sometimes we record all at once. There's going to be a lot recorded on this Japan trip.
Speaker: What do we have on the itinerary, Joey? We are, so we've got a bunch of Tokyo-related administrative stuff we're doing this week.
Speaker: um We're taking a trip up to our Miyoko property, or nearby. um We're checking out a guy up there who does these um tiny homes, and we're we're looking at maybe po dropping a tiny home or two on the property. He also does saunas as well, so that could be really cool. We're checking out he one of his like showroom kind of properties.
Speaker: spending a night there and meeting him. He's a great guy. Maybe we have him on the podcast sometime too. Yeah. What do we got? Then we're going down. We're taking some, we're doing a photo shoot. Yeah. We're going down to Atami. We're doing a big website redesign.
Speaker: And if you have any feedback on a website, please hit us up. Joey's the one man army, but we're trying to do our best to make the web website experience the best. But with that, We have recruited a couple of of our friends to be models for some hero images, some so pictures around the website. So just know we're not using AI images. I know that's getting so tiring seeing at this point, we're actually just going to try to get our friends to pose for a lot of these photos and have it be consistent and high quality across the website.
Speaker: So at to me for a couple of days. And then we're heading to Tokushima for, we're checking out a surf house and doing some surfing down the, uh, the Nankai coast.
Speaker: Nankai for everybody. That's like the South Sea, but there's the Nankai trough, which is like, you know, they think it's going a big earthquake. well what Give me the stat. What did you see? I saw, I don't know if it's cause I might, I was talking about it or, and my phone was listening, but like some Google recommends articles sometimes and it was talking about the Nankai trough and it said,
Speaker: new Japanese research team declares 80% likelihood of like a massive Nankai earthquake in the next 30 years. So I don't know if it's a real headline or just the algorithm recommended it. But anyways, along that whole kind of Kochi, Shikoku kind of coast there, they're expecting a big earthquake and related tsunami.
Speaker: I guess 80% likelihood in the next 30 years. So on the way over from California, i brought two surfboards and like everyone asked me like, oh, you surfing? I'm like, yeah, it's typhoon season. So waves are going to be huge. I think yeah we're just planning to surf in a couple of places in Shikoku, which is think the most most Akiya, probably the least traveled island of Japan.
Speaker: But the current forecast is 15 to 18 foot waves. Yeah, I will not be surfing if it's huge. Just the shoulder, bro. Just the shoulder, bro. You know, along this quick, quick lesson along this, we've worked really hard on this business and we find ourselves sitting at computers all day. So we're taking the liberties of blending in a little health and trading in some wealth here.
Speaker: We're going to be trying to surf as much as possible and looking at two surf properties, actually one in around Tokushima area, one closer Tosashimizu, which is further south, closer to Kochi.
Speaker: And testing out the waters, man. Let's see if... Joe, you ready to get barreled, bro? 15 to 18? You could like fit a car, actually, in that barrel if it if it did. Anyways, checking out the waters. I don't even think Pipeline's like 15 to 18. 15 to 18, Hawaiian's insane.
Speaker: I think it it's going to be very big. So we're hopefully we have 100 more episodes, actually. But we will be recording along the way. So excited for that, Joey. Every trip we do, it's supposed to be chill days. But I'm sorry, back to back.
Speaker: But they're all fun fun days, you know? Yeah, we do have to defend those chill days. But we are getting a little creep on them. Yep. Okay, well, that's it for our 100th episode. Again, if you are a listener, please shoot us a like on Spotify. We're going to see if we can hit 100 likes. i I know that doesn't mean 100 likes. Let's go. i think like how much it like Tim Ferriss, Joe Rogan probably got like 100,000 or a million. So we're just that we're just trying to shoot for 100. We're the small fries here. But if you've been a podcast listener or you're listening for the first time, thank you. Who would have thought we made it to episode 100, Joey?
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.
Speaker: 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.
Speaker: 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.
