Transcript
Speaker: Hey all, wanted to give you a heads up. This next podcast will be recorded back, I think, end of January, early February, but we didn't get a chance to get it out. It's with one of our good friends, Andrew, and I think you guys will all hopefully enjoy this.
Speaker: Whether or not you can buy a house in Japan, there's no question, you can. And I think it's like any long-term project that you're working on or a startup that you're working on, right? It's just showing up every day and putting one foot in front of the other. That's what it takes.
Speaker: Welcome back everybody to another episode of buying a house in Japan podcast. My name is Joey joined here by my cohost Take. Today we have a special guest.
Speaker: Andrew is joining us on the podcast today. Andrew is a recent home buyer in Japan. He purchased with our friend Emil Gorgies is the real estate agent who helped them buy his beautiful property. Welcome Andrew.
Speaker: Thanks guys. Yeah, I'm thrilled to have the opportunity to talk to you. It's been a couple months and an entire home purchase, I think since we last hung out on a video chat. So yeah, I'm looking forward to getting into it. This has been a few, like half a year in the making, a year in the making, this whole journey for you.
Speaker: Yeah, it's been a while. I'm one of the OG Akiya Mart listeners. Like I'm not like from the very beginning, but I'm before Tama Basecamp. and I'm sorry, i' I respect what you guys are doing with renaming your houses to Tokyo Suburb Midterm Rental, right? You you got it.
Speaker: To me, there'll always be Jisoo Gilux and Tama Basecamp. Thanks for being a listener, Angie. There was a point where we're like, are we just talking to nobody at this point? But it's good to hear that And thank you for following us. And we're stoked to have you on today to finally join us as one of our Akiyamart doers and dreamers.
Speaker: You are definitely ah one of the doers converted from a dreamer. Andrew, tell us a little bit about your backstory. Yeah. So I grew up in the suburbs of DC in Northern Virginia, and I had the good fortune to attend a public school system that actually offered Japanese as a language option.
Speaker: So I did. Like in eighth grade, I studied Japanese for five years before I graduated high school. And I would say for the first three years or so, i was a solid bpl plus student, right? You memorized it. You took your test. You filled in the blanks, right? And that was Japanese.
Speaker: And it wasn't until my third year where my Japanese teacher said, Andrew, there's this program called high school diplomats. I think you'd be a great fit. I'll write you a recommendation if you want. but And I said, yes, which was odd for me at the time, because back then I ah i was a homebody. I'm an introvert, right? But this time, for whatever reason, okay, let's try it.
Speaker: I get accepted to this program and I end being able to go to Japan for four straight weeks on scholarship. Like they paid for my airfare, they paid for all my lodging, they took us around the country. Like let's go to Hiroshima, let's go to Kyoto, Osaka, Kobe, Tokyo. Like they took us everywhere, showed us everything and gave us a Japanese roommate.
Speaker: That was when for me, like Japan was no longer about filling in the blanks and getting the right answer on the test. It was like you could form these real connections with people. We form these really tight bonds over this exchange program.
Speaker: So I graduated high school. I went to university and i studied Japanese there too, but I started my freshman year in 301, right? So by the end of my sophomore year, I was out of Japanese to take. So then my junior year, third year of of college, I studied abroad in Japan.
Speaker: at Keogh University in Tokyo. And then I came home and there was no Japanese left for me to take. So my senior year i studied German. and anyway which It's little bit easier than Japanese, but that's neither here nor there. So fell in love with Japanese and Japan and the people there. So i started researching buying a home in Japan.
Speaker: And I always knew like I couldn't just up and go to Japan. right My wife, she works full time. She's getting her PhD and we've got two kids. I help out a lot as dad. I needed an excuse to buy a house in Japan.
Speaker: So it couldn't just be like, this is for me, it's my pad and and I'm not going to share it. Like I needed to approach this from like an investor minded perspective where it's okay.
Speaker: If we can find a place that'll generate some revenue, then I can justify the purchase. And then while I've got it, if you get a mean poppy license, you're only limited to 180 days per year. Right. And that means half the year it's empty. Oh no.
Speaker: And you can spend how long in Japan on a tourist visa? Half a year. So that that was the plan and there were ups and there were downs, there were challenges and I've got a whole list of pro tips that I would love to share about my experiences, but that is Andrew a nutshell.
Speaker: I'm gonna hit you with a spicy question red right away. You have obviously a lot of history and connection with Japan, the country. On the one hand, we get a lot of people reaching out to us that just want the free house, never been to Japan, that want the free house.
Speaker: Then there's people that are a little bit more serious. I would say middle ground. They've done their research, they've been browsing properties, but they've never been to Japan before. Do you think somebody, now that you've gone through this buying process, do you think somebody that's never been to Japan before, do you think that they can still make this work?
Speaker: That is a really tough question. This past week, I was in Japan getting the house set up. And i think unless you've got your person on the ground who can like really do everything, you're going to have a hard time, especially if you don't know Japanese.
Speaker: Like the amount of Japanese I had to employ calling multiple different companies to help me get my fridge installed, which that's a story I would love to tell. You're going to have a hard time if you don't know Japanese.
Speaker: Now, I will say that you do have gaijin powers. If you show up and and people can tell that you're not native Japanese, you get a lot of leeway. and b And people get curious, especially if you're not smack dab in the middle of Tokyo, like you're going someplace a little outside of big cities.
Speaker: People are going to wonder, like, why are you here? They're going to be naturally curious. And you can use that to strike up conversations and talk a little bit more about yourself. I was at a gift store for the Enoden Railway. I live next to this adorable, cute electric train that runs along the Shonan coast, picking up some souvenirs. And i talked to the woman. i love everything in here. It's so cute.
Speaker: And she was like ready to talk to me. like, what is this? dude doing in here, this American guy's in this gift store. And then I end up getting like a recommendation, just like you gotta go down the block, around the corner, it's about half a mile, you wanna get lunch here.
Speaker: They might not strike up that kind of conversation with you know someone who's native Japanese, but because people are curious about you, you've got you can leverage your gaijin powers to get pro tips and advice and just break the ice. Where'd you buy the house again?
Speaker: yeah how much did you buy? Like, give us give us the specs, you know, paint a picture for the listener. Okay. So I mentioned that, you know, I went in with an investor mindset, right? And I knew where I wanted to live because my roommate in college was coincidentally Japanese. He did two years at a community college in California.
Speaker: Then he transferred to university in Virginia and his family lived in Chigasaki. And so when I was studying abroad, They took me to Inoshima Island and they took me around Kamakura. They showed me around. I loved it.
Speaker: They did the same thing when i took my wife in 2013, right? They were always taking good care of me and I fell in love with this area. And I knew this is where i wanted to live. But all the apps where you look for like houses in Japan, they were so like not intuitive until Akiyamart.
Speaker: hey and so i had my filters joey when you added the lists to where you could create different lists that was crucial too because i was still shopping around i didn't know for sure this is the area but i kept coming back to this one spot there was this amazing house that i absolutely loved like super modern it had three toilets That is unheard of in Japan. Three toilets, right? there's There was like a rooftop terrace. There's a pool there. i just love this house. And like, whenever I'd look at something else, i'd always come back and really want this house.
Speaker: But like, it was prohibitively expensive. Like, absolutely, like, it would just set me back all my retirement, right? It was like 300 million yen, which at the exchange rate was like $2 million. dollars Like, that's not a poor financial decision. That's like ruinous.
Speaker: Hard sell for to the family. Yeah. right investment but i was curious having listened to your podcast and ziv's podcast like i was familiar with like the jre summit right and i knew tracy northcott and i knew like she specialized in short-term rentals and she mentioned on ah on another podcast that she has access to price labs data Where like Japan is very meticulous about keeping track of who stays at your house and how much they pay and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So there's this wealth of data that I didn't know how to tap into, but Tracy did. So I got on a call with Tracy and I explained like my situation and she's okay, we'll do some research. She comes back and she's like, so this house that you're looking at, the amount of money that you could make is around 40 million yen per year.
Speaker: I'm thinking like, what that's that's more than 10%. This is ah bad bananas, right? And she's like, here's the thing. There are like almost no comps for this type of house, right? you We're looking at all of of the kind of all prefecture.
Speaker: Like, And I don't like these stats because she's saying like most reservations are made like the night before and then maybe a couple nights that they're there, maybe not. But it's super quick turnaround time in terms of cleaning and it's so sporadic and you don't know.
Speaker: But according to these other places, like they get booked and maybe you can make money, but it's not a sure bet. But I saw... 40 million yen. And I think that's like, even after taxes and the exchange, right? That's like 200 K per year.
Speaker: Like that's quit your job. Like just have this house. And so like Tracy and Emil are close friends. Like they have dinner together. And so like, I'm on with Emil Gorgies I'm like, Emil, like I found this house and he's she cheated. Go home. was like out of my range. I'm like a Tokyo guy, but you know what you want? And also it's 300 million yen. So let's talk about it.
Speaker: And what he had done is he had called the realtor and he's like, this house is listed in two places. One, it is a local agent and he says it's already under contract. And my guess is he wants to play both sides.
Speaker: He wants to be the buyer and the seller agent. meals I contacted this other guy And then he gets a phone call and it it is the other agent calling him back. And so like, you're on a video call me and talking to the agent and the other agents like, yeah, it is still available.
Speaker: There are three things you need to know about this place. One is it is right next to the train tracks and the train is loud. And the second thing is it's in a landslide zone. Third thing is there is no parking.
Speaker: And we're looking at this and I love this house and I wanted this house. And Emil, bless him, was like, if you're buying a nice house, it should check all your boxes.
Speaker: And if it's going to be loud, if every 20 minutes the train is going by, there's no parking, like... Those things might be deal breakers for people who are looking to rent luxury property.
Speaker: Look, there's another house right here. It's five houses down. And i'm like what are you talking about? That's not on Akiamart. And he's like, oh, it was listed just a couple hours ago. I'm like, what? And sure enough, five houses down, there is this 75 square meter house.
Speaker: It's got this wood deck that overlooks Pacific Ocean, a complete renovation. It's a full reform. It was built in 2001, I think. So it's got the best latest earthquake standards.
Speaker: It is insulated already. There's no esthospital. And then it was like completely gutted and redone. It's like brand new. nice And instead of being 300 million yen, it was 65 million yen.
Speaker: That changed the equation. And so we get Tracy on and she's like, let me c crunch some numbers. And like the next day Tracy comes back and she's like, yeah, this place will bring in 8 million yen per year. But the numbers that you're looking at are from Japanese people who do not actually optimize prices. Like they don't have seasonality, like the same price year round. They don't charge for cleaning because they think more people will book it, but that's not true based on my research. So if you ah adjust for seasonality, raise your price during high peak seasons and charge cleaning fees, people don't mind paying them.
Speaker: Then the fact that you are two minutes from a train station, three minutes from the beach, she seemed to imply that we could get 10 million yen per year from this 65 million yen house, which all in, I guess, is probably close to 70 million because i had to buy air conditioning units. had to buy furniture and all that stuff, but it's a lot of money still.
Speaker: It's the median home price in the U S but if you can make 10% or more on it, That's the mindset I went in with. So Tracy hooked me up with a caretaker who runs a cleaning business and they got their economy license so they can administer this place.
Speaker: We're going to try and get short-term rentals, Minpaku license. We're going to try and generate some revenue from it. And then for the other half of the year, it's friends and family. Congratulations. 65 million just for listeners converting that dollars. What is that? Around like 400?
Speaker: say all in was 70 million divided by 152 it's 460 000 us dollars
Speaker: four hundred and sixty thousand dollars u s dollars We're fully renovated 2001 with Beach View. That's crazy still. Yeah. I saw photos. like Walking distance to the train, walking distance to the beach.
Speaker: You had a solid team, Tracy and Emil, ah both on the case. For listeners out there, Tracy and Emil are OGs in the space. Real solid team you had put together there, Andrew. Don't forget the Ocumart guys.
Speaker: Hey, there you go. So did you see this site unseen or did you do video tours or did you go to Japan? What was that whole process like of of viewing the place? I put the offer on site unseen and then Emil went down to do the inspection and i got it. I hopped on a video call at 4 Eastern Standard Time, right? And Emil was like there at sunset in Japan, 6 p.m.
Speaker: And so we got to watch a sunset from the wood deck. He took me around. He recorded a video too. And that that video was crucial for figuring out like, What's the layout? Where are things going to go? What do the outlets look like? you know When you're buying air conditioners, you got to know, this is a 200-volt AC spot or 100-volt AC spot? right so I did not see it in person until, gosh, a week from yesterday.
Speaker: that Tuesday. Tell us about it. was it Did it match expectations? I'm assuming at this price point, it it's probably less risky than us looking at our Akias and showing up in person. But tell us about your first impressions.
Speaker: Well, first impressions, you know you have you have that lump in your throat because it's, oh my gosh, my dream came true. right It just completely met expectations. It was exactly as advertised. Yeah, it's really nice. There was nothing wrong with it.
Speaker: Just a quick interruption, everybody. We have some exciting news. Take and I are selling our Nagasaki property, AG1. This house is really cool, guys. It is in a small town on the Nagasaki coastline, 30-second walk from the beach and 25-minute drive to downtown Nagasaki. We are teeing this property up with a car and also someone in the neighborhood, boots on the ground that can help you with any odd jobs that you might have while you're not in the country. This is our first pilot Akiyamart seal of approval property. We've taken our past two years of failures and experiences and brought that all in a pre-packaged property to set you up for success here. So if you are interested, take a look at our Akiyamart map. It should be up over Nagasaki. It's one of our featured properties. Or shoot us an email at contact at akiyamart.com and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.
Speaker: All right, let's go into the hard parts of the transactions. the tip, again, a lot of listeners are Akia hopeful buyers. Your price point is maybe ah not considered a quote unquote Akia, but it still is. This is an open house. But what tips do you have? What were some of the hardships you faced along the way here?
Speaker: Money was hard, getting money there. The first thing I did was I heard all the advice about use OFX because wise, like they limit transfers or slow. So I make an OFX account and they're like, oh, here you want to transfer money. Can we ask you what you're going to be doing with this money? And I'm like yeah, i want to buy a house in Japan. That's that's great. Where did the money come from? I sold some investments. Okay, tell us about the investments you sold. I sold some Bitcoin. And they're like, I'm sorry, we refuse to work with Oh, really? They just straight up will not interface with anyone who does crypto. Really? oh Shoot.
Speaker: Now it was around this time that Wyze, they changed their transfer limits, right? Where they would start to allow more. So I'm like, this is great. I'll just go through Wyze. And so the money for the down payment, I started that with Wyze like ah a week and a half before it was due.
Speaker: And it was stuck for three weeks. So what I ended up having to do is like ah couple days before contract signing where you have to make the down payment. and um I ended up having to go to my bank and just do a direct wire transfer.
Speaker: And man, that was like 2% more expensive than the mid market rate. The exchange rate at the time there was like 150 and gave me 147.
Speaker: which when you're transferring like 30,000 bucks, that's a lot of yeah It hurt. So if you're going to transfer money to Japan, Wise works well for me eventually, but it still took me like four emails, two phone calls, like multiple uploading documents, multiple times talking to support over and over, which coming from the world of crypto, where it's like, you want to move a million dollars, that'll be $1 in fees. And it's already done.
Speaker: yeah It was painful. Do you think it was the Japanese banks? like What was the main friction point? I think it was held up at Wise itself. like Wise needed documentation. And maybe they needed the documentation to tell Japanese banks.
Speaker: Did you have to split up your transaction? 50K, 50K? No, i because they allowed you to do a large transfer. Oh, really? Yes. Oh. We've always been under whatever wise limits their default website has. That's good.
Speaker: Scary stuff. Three weeks is a long time. We are trying to sell our Nagasaki property directly for Bitcoin in the next few months here.
Speaker: And we're trying to work it out with our Shiho Shoshi and real estate agent. But any thoughts on that? We're trying to get everybody in this chain of events to accept Bitcoin and see if can make this work.
Speaker: Oh, so like you would pay the Shiho Shoshi in Bitcoin. He's tentatively on board to get paid with Bitcoin. Yeah. I was excited because there's some drama with purchasing things from Bic Camera as well. And Bic Camera had a, hey, you can buy in Bitcoin.
Speaker: And I thought, this is great. Really? Yes. Now, in order to pay in Bitcoin, you must send it from a BitFlyer account. And if you send it from any other account, it won't work.
Speaker: And by the way, if you're a US citizen, you can't have a BitFlyer account. I feel like even in the US, people are not really adopting it. They might have like a Coinbase account or whatever, but like no one's doing self-custody.
Speaker: If you guys can make that work, like I would love to hear about it because I don't feel like anywhere in the world is really doing crypto yet. We're going to give it a shot. We will need some tips from you. and we know We're opening up a Binance account. I guess our biggest thing was getting the Shiho Shoshi on board and being like, hey, if we did this transaction for X amount of Bitcoin, would you be open to recording the deed? He's yeah, as long as you have a true bill of sale or receipt.
Speaker: And so now just figuring out like how do we... receive off-ramp, pay taxes, and then also pay the Shiho Shoshi and the real estate agent. The will is there. We just need the way now, but I do feel like everybody is tentatively on board for this like world, at least Japan first transaction. Yeah, that would be amazing. like In your shoes, I would feel like, okay, I'm just going to pay everything in cash and then Akiyamark guys get to keep the Bitcoin, but all the cash happens and then maybe mark it up one, two, three, four, 5% or whatever.
Speaker: But then you have to pay capital gains on the Bitcoin that you get in and then all all that stuff. So my thought is just leave Japan as Japan because they have their processes and that's how things are.
Speaker: But like, if you can pave the way, if you can take your machete and cut through this jungle, and allow like bitcoin payments for real estate like if you can set that precedent what an incredible achievement that would be i'm rooting for you guys thank you yep we are sharpening the machete i think we're going to nakasaki to go get some content on the property and start identifying the right people but we are probably going to need some tips uh we we know you're deep in the the space so now i want to hear about the refrigerator story
Speaker: but very very How many people did it take? what what was the situation? Lay it out for us. I was very deliberate choosing my fridge. I knew the stairwell was 80 centimeters wide.
Speaker: And I ordered a refrigerator that was 60 centimeters wide. I figure 20 cm is plenty of room. Plenty. And I found like on Rakuten, you could buy the fridge and they would ship it with a shipping company and they would install it as well.
Speaker: The guys show up to my house with this refrigerator and they're like, great. And but your kitchen's on the second floor. i'm like, yep. And they're like, cool. Let's see the staircase. And look at the staircase, pull out their tape measures. And the guys like, they shake their heads and they look at me and they say, this is physically impossible.
Speaker: And I'm like, what? What if we take the door off? And they're like, no, we cannot do that. We won't do that. And it ended up being like the staircase has a 90 degree turn in it.
Speaker: And then it's also going upstairs. And there's this one point before the ceiling opens up to the second floor where it's like the height of the step going around the 90 degree turn and the ceiling, like there was no way to get this fridge around the corner, even if they took it off the packaging and everything.
Speaker: And they're like, we can't do anything for you, sorry. And they leave it in front of my house. They're like, see ya. This is like Thursday. Saturday's my last day in Japan. And I gotta catch that plane Sunday morning, gotta leave Shichirigahama at 5.30 a.m.
Speaker: I'm starting to freak out. I start calling people, Japanese, like a common moving company. And I'm like, oh man, I have this fridge I need to move. That's great, what is your customer number? And I'm like, no, you guys didn't help me move the first time. This is a new house. And they're like, we we can't help you, sorry.
Speaker: Oh, man. So i'm like I'm on the phone like calling people. like The air conditioning installation guys are there, and it's a couple of Polish guys doing my AC units. But they're like, yeah, we can take the door off, and the two of us can carry it up the stairs for you. and but You just have to disassemble your whole refrigerator, and maybe it will work, and maybe it won't.
Speaker: I'm thinking, like o I don't know if that's a good plan. And someone picks up the phone, this company, local company called like Benry, B E N R Y. Yeah. Like a play on Benry, which is convenient. convenience Right.
Speaker: And they're like a handyman. And this guy's, Oh, let me come see. And he hangs up 10 minutes later. i get a knock on my door. And he was like, rode his bicycle over to my house. And he looks around and he's like okay, that second story window, we're going to take the window out.
Speaker: We're going to get ladders. We're going to get a slider. And we're just going to move your fridge through the window. And I'm like, if you're sure you can do it, he is yes, we can show up on Friday night at 5 p.m.
Speaker: with five dudes and it will cost you 27,000 twenty seven thousand yet And sure enough, five dudes show up at my house, 5.30 p.m. on a Friday. and I have this video and i I can send you the video. I love them pushing a fridge through a second story window.
Speaker: Like five dudes, they were here for like an hour, hour and a half. And it cost me like 170 bucks. Like it's, I could not believe it. Like totally worth the money. We got a lot of that kind of pushback from, i feel like larger companies in Japan. So we're trying to get insulation in TBC, Tokyo midterm ah stay. And a lot of can't do attitude, I feel like.
Speaker: But juxtaposing that with Sato-san in Beppu, he's a one person guy company. He'll do anything you want kind of thing. For the viewers out there, if you do go down this path, working with larger companies, I personally sometimes get frustrated with the kind of can't do attitude. So this is something else, another story for you guys, which is I needed to install ACs in my house. And I was listening to the Akia Mart podcast. And I heard this great pro tip from one Mr. Joseph Stockerman, who was like, hey, if you go to Big Camera and you buy stuff in bulk, they'll give you a discount.
Speaker: And I'm like, I am doing that. That sounds great. I picked out all my stuff in Big Camera. and i'm like, I want these Daikin air conditioning because they're made in Japan and they're easy to clean. i'm like, this is going to be great. And they're like, is your billing address the same as your shipping address? i'm like, no, my credit card is registered in the US.
Speaker: And they're like, okay, enter your billing address. Please tell us what prefecture you live in and input your seven digit zip code. Didn't work. So I'm actually on with chat GPT. And I'm like, this is my problem with AC is like, are there any local people who can help?
Speaker: And Chad GPT is like, you should check out Tokyo Handyman. He does ACs. I'll go to this website. And it's this dude who is very obviously like former model, gorgeous, long blonde hair and like stubble in the chiseled chin.
Speaker: write him an email. Sure enough, he's like, yeah, we do ACs all the time. And in fact, and here's a pro tip for all the listeners out there. If you go with a private installer instead of a big box retailer, the markup on some of these appliances is outrageous.
Speaker: And they were able to get the air conditioning units for one third of the cost of what Bic Camera was charging. One third? One third, right? Where like Bic Camera wanted 400,000 yen.
Speaker: They were getting it for like 170,000. Pro tip, pro tip. That is a good tip. I do feel like go smaller, like more local, go smaller. I think it works better for the foreigner in Japan.
Speaker: yeah And so speaking of going local, it turned out that Kokyo Handyman, his name is Lucas, he ended up living just 10 minutes away from me. And again, guy comes over on his bicycle to check out the place. He's like, all right, cool. Me and my buddy will be here tomorrow to do the install. And so like I had some blinds shipped.
Speaker: So good old Brandon, my neighbor, brought my... blinds and curtains into the house. And then Lucas is going over today. He's going to install them for me. So it's like, i got my fixers, like you said, like people on the ground who are helping out and it's invaluable, right?
Speaker: And these are not people that I knew going over there. I got some business cards printed. Like here's my contact info. Here's my address in Japan, my address in the U S email address, phone numbers, right? Here's who I am. little picture of me. So people remember, and then you create those Omiya gates, right? So I, I have a really good idea. Yeah. Business card with the Omiya gate.
Speaker: Yeah, so I put it in like the bag. I got some cookies from a local bakery, and then Virginia's famous for peanuts. So I got some Virginia peanuts, and I met the neighbors next door. The neighbor two doors down, they've got two kids, ages one and four.
Speaker: My kids are two and eight. Brandon has two kids. You meet people, you form connections. And I wasn't expecting to become friends with my AC installer. yeah He worked hard in my house all day. like I bought him dinner.
Speaker: He speaks English. It was a good time. So yeah, definitely like you can go in there with the best laid plans. And I'm here to tell you that whether or not you can buy a house in Japan, there's no question you can.
Speaker: And I think it's like any long-term project that you're working on or a startup that you're working on, right? It's, Just showing up every day and putting one foot in front of the other, that's what it takes. If you're on the fence about like, can I do this or can I not do it?
Speaker: The answer is you can do it and it will be fine and things will come up. But just every day, just like putting one foot in front of the other keep making progress. And the end of that journey is you've got your dream house in Japan.
Speaker: Oh, yeah. Really good advice. And while you're saying that, I just like was reminded of me and Joey. like one Every day, we're just breaking down some Dombodu cardboard boxes and slowly putting it away. We had this mountain. And it was just like, okay, every day, let's just do a couple more. like But no, really good advice, Andrew. And I think for listeners, like we have a lot of folks that are like trying to...
Speaker: Maybe like over-engineer it or over-schedule it and just be like, hey, I'm going to be really efficient with my time. I'm going to do x Y, Z on what these days. And it it just doesn't work like that. I do think though that pre-scheduling everything, if you're going to do that, try and front load it. i showed up in Japan on Monday night and I just crashed at the airport hotel. Tuesday, I was there early. But on Wednesday, I had the air conditioning scheduled.
Speaker: I had the... gas installation scheduled. I had the internet installation scheduled. like I tried to get everything done in advance because sure enough, something is going to go wrong. And can we talk about utilities?
Speaker: Let's do it. What was super helpful for me getting utilities turned on is I found this website called Hikoshiline. So that's H-I-K-O-S-H-I-L-I-N-E.com.
Speaker: And this site helps you move. In my case, I wasn't moving from another place in Japan, but they did tell me what my options were for utilities. like I didn't know who my electricity provider was. i didn't know who my water provider was.
Speaker: And it turned out with gas, my house is not in a place where there's city gas lines. So I needed like these liquid propane tanks. So another pro tip, check out Hikoshi Line.
Speaker: They can tell you who the provider is for your address, for example, but then you still gotta call all those providers, right? And figure that out. What's the next step? When you sign up for Hikoshi Line, you enter your address information, your personal information, like some general information.
Speaker: When you select, I want my gas to be this provider from a dropdown, they will then pre-populate most of the fields and then say, okay, your gas provider requires this additional information about your house.
Speaker: In my case, it's are there gas tanks there already? Yes or no? You fill in these additional questions and then you can schedule installation on the site. After the installation was done, they took my credit card info and they ran it.
Speaker: And thank goodness, if you're there in person with the card, things go through. I could buy stuff a big camera with my card, no problem when I was in Japan, but i just couldn't order it online. Same thing with Ikea. Like I couldn't order it online from the US unless I called customer service and they were able to load my cart Then they created a purchase order.
Speaker: Then they emailed me the purchase order and there's a buy now button. But he's like, don't push that button. but You need to wait for a second email from Sony pay. And then you send your credit card information to Sony pay, which will then pay the invoice for the purchase order at Ikea. And then we can schedule your delivery.
Speaker: I'm so glad you you feel the pain we felt with it so much. It's really uniquely like frustrating on some of these things. Emil told me, like when you get IKEA, pay for the the installation service.
Speaker: like yeah It's extra money for them to build your furniture. But I had two guys come out and spend three hours constructing like a table and six chairs and beds and putting a couch together. And it was not...
Speaker: like a lot of money. It was very reasonable. I feel like when I bought from Nitori or any of these other services, it's installations. Great. The true value is they took the trash away. They unboxed my Ikea furniture, all that cardboard, all that gone.
Speaker: Don't underestimate trash hauling. Like we have like, we could have a couple episodes on trash, which we will, we'll invite you back on when we have trash. I have stories.
Speaker: but Going back to utilities, one thing actually we've been working on. So if you don't have the language abilities that Andrew does and you are looking for utility partners, we actually have three people that have stood up little mini companies. One is our agent, Yo, who has Nostal Homes. He's willing to help set up utilities, tax representation.
Speaker: Also, Mailmate is making a program with us called Akiya Mate. And we also have one other the guy, Yoshi with Air Akiya, who's also going to be doing this. So if you don't want to go through these hurdles and you just want to pay for easy mode, we do have a couple of resources.
Speaker: Feel free to reach out to us and we'll send them. So Andrew, next house, if you don't want to go do this all, we are we have a couple of folks that can help because we know it's really confusing, like figuring out utilities and hats off to you for figuring it out by yourself though.
Speaker: What are you doing about tax representative, Andrew? Is Neil doing that for you? do you have someone on the ground? Tracy put me in touch with, oh, Sato-san, Daigo. Sato Daigo. Daigo. Oh, okay.
Speaker: So I had a call with him and he said he'd be willing to do it. I guess it's going to happen once we start having revenue come in, right? Yeah, really cool guy. We were using him for some accounting services. He does it in English.
Speaker: He's also the ex-accountant for Oda-sensei, who's the One Piece manga writer. No way. I didn't know that. I got drunk at a bar and I was like, this is he's Oda Sensei's accountant. And I think he was pissed at me for that. But but ah but fun story. I'm glad you're in the network now, Andrew. It's it's awesome. Yeah. No, he was so nice. like Everyone I have worked with has been like super pleasant in the whole Japanese real estate community, but then also just the neighbors too. Yeah.
Speaker: This has been such a positive experience. Everyone I've interacted with genuinely loves what they do. They're passionate about it. And there's some podcasts you listen to where people are like, they're hustling and it's about making money. And I've never felt like...
Speaker: you guys are about turning a profit at anyone's expense, that you guys are always about genuinely being helpful. And I felt that in our previous conversations too. It was never about how can we nickel and dime this, guys? Let's provide a service and help other people make this lifestyle change. And so I really appreciate that.
Speaker: I think you guys are doing great work. And I hope everyone listening, give Joey and Take a chance because they are great. Thank you, Andrew. And thanks for joining us today. Great way to close out the episode.
Speaker: Hope you enjoy your house on the Shonan coastline. Sounds beautiful. Well, thanks, Andrew. Thanks, guys.
