Transcript
Speaker: My first question is why? And that's not in a gnarky way or anything. It's just what are your reasons for being here? Because it won't be for you.
Speaker: Welcome to the buying a house in Japan podcast. Today we have a very, very actively sought after guest, Tracy Northcott, the meme pucker queen. We've known Tracy for almost two years now, and we're really excited to finally have her on the podcast.
Speaker: Welcome Tracy to the buying a house in Japan podcast. i'll Always such a pleasure to hang out with you guys. Like honestly, you throw the best parties and you're so fun. So thank you for inviting me.
Speaker: Who are you and how how the heck did you end up where you are managing all these Airbnbs? I know that you have such a cool entrepreneurial background. Yeah, yeah well, I've lived in Japan 25 years. I first came to Japan in 87, probably longer than you guys have been alive.
Speaker: I was at high school actually and I did Japanese at high school and I did Japanese at university as well along with my science degree. I'm an organic synthetic chemist by training, which of course I don't use at all anymore.
Speaker: I tried to do Japanese together with chemistry at University of Queensland. I had to run from one end of campus to the other in between lectures because they were never designed to go together.
Speaker: So I really just stayed in the science for a while. i worked as a chemist as ah in a laboratory. I was a terrible scientist. I blew myself up regularly.
Speaker: And so then I saw my first computer when I was in third year university. Smartphones didn't even exist when I was at college. Yes, I'm old. And my mind was blown.
Speaker: And so after chemistry, it was a bit too old fuddy-duddy for me. And it was very male-centric. It's like, I need to be doing something bit more interesting. So I retrained in IT. I did a postgraduate certificate in sort of IT management.
Speaker: I guess these days it would be like scrum and all those things that never existed. And so then i came to Japan to work with my brother who had set out up a software company but in language learning, specifically language learning software on mobile devices.
Speaker: So we were doing dictionaries and front-end processes and fonts and input methods in Asia on small devices. We were the Apple Newton distributor for the RAM.
Speaker: And so we were building software, running double-byte and running fonts and handwriting recognition on a Newton. And then, of course, the Newton was killed. We did a few other different handheld devices, Palm Pilot, Scions,
Speaker: and all those things. And then the smartphone came out. And then so we went, you know, the Apple iPhone one came out in 2008. That was it. We're off to the races. So we've been doing that ever since. It's pretty passive income these days because it's dictionaries and like an engine and it's just mainly keeping things up to date.
Speaker: But the thing about running a business and what my brother gave me permission to do and encouraged me to do is like, if you've got a side hustle, if you've got something, an idea, we have a fully fledged company here. Like use it, you know, go fast and break things, right? Like, you know, try things, fail, whatever. And I was like, so this is my brother, my big brother encouraging me. And I'm like, oh, I can do this.
Speaker: And also, not being stuck in a sort of Japanese corporate environment very much to helped. I've had a bar, i've had a wine bar because I like drinking, we're australia my bond I've done all sorts of side hustles along the way. And then after my son was born, I decided to rent a small apartment near my house so we could have family and friends come to visit.
Speaker: And it was like, you know, I'll put it up on Airbnb if I break even, I'm gone. That started it, huh? And it was just, and it was like, oh, the money was good. And it was like, it was wild, wild west. And the thing is, I really, what I really loved was showing my town to inbounds.
Speaker: Like, it was almost, I fell in love with Tokyo again and again and again, because every time people would come, they would come with this like excitement and the wow. And it's like, and I would be able to help them.
Speaker: Top-notch recommendation, Tracy, like that kind of feedback. Yeah, it feels good. Yeah. So it's just like I was able to help people enjoy my town and give them the benefit of my experience. And that felt really nice.
Speaker: I was like, ah, I want more of this. want more. So then we used the rental arbitrage model, which is a thing, but I didn't know it was a thing. I just sort of flew by the seat of my pants and it was just did the next thing that was interesting or the next right thing or the next opportunity. I was just able to sort grab that and boom, here we are.
Speaker: I'm curious, actually, a lot of our listeners are are you know a little hesitant to make that jump. It seems like you went all in. And like what was that kind of trigger for you? I know you your brother was already in Japan. At what point were you like, okay, I'm not going back. I'm not living permanently Australia. I'm living in Japan permanently. It was never a long-term plan, Tucker. It was never a long-term thing. It was like, oh, it's going to come for two years. Let's get the company public. I mean, it was all these silly ideas.
Speaker: And then maybe I'll get a different job in ah and be an expat and have the huge apartment. It was just reinventing and reinventing based on what was happening. It was never planned. I'm a very low risk dollar and so I'm like, yeah, give it a go. Like, I'll try it. But then getting into the real estate bit, it was like, well, how much can I afford to lose every month? This apartment that I rented was like,
Speaker: a hundred and ten hundred and twenty thousand a month right and it was like if i don't get any bookings this month i can pay that i can cover that out of my wallet and i wasn't like super leveraged and like everything has to work it was like well what can i baby steps and then as that worked okay that that made me the confidence to do the next thing and then the next bit of growth and going you know but Don't bite off more than you can chew.
Speaker: like Look about what if what you can afford to lose. Don't bet the farm ever. I never say that as an entrepreneur. Make calculated risks. You've been starting businesses in Japan since is it early 90s. I was still in elementary school then. And I'm just curious because I've had frustrating moments starting. We have a KK in Tokyo now, and there's always complications with that. Takei and I are... are running it from abroad. So there's additional complications there. do you still have those moments where you're like, why is Japan every like this or like?
Speaker: and Every day. But the thing about when you do set up a KK, tick every box when you do your incorporation, when it asks you, what is your planned business activities?
Speaker: Tick all the boxes. If you do find another opportunity, you can pivot and you don't then have to go back to the Scrivener and redraw up the letters of incorporation to include that. Because that's an extra cost.
Speaker: When you do it, when you incorporate, it's free to tick all the boxes. But if you have to go back, you have to pay a scrivener. Like it's usually 50,000 yen just to do a change of of business activities. How do you deal with that frustration though? Or do you not, or do you just like 20 years in Japan, 25 years, like it's an acceptance thing or like, I still get that reaction. where I'm like, this very same order about that what else specific frustrations are you seeing?
Speaker: Online banking. Like I could rant about online banking forever. I can rant about online banking all day as well. I mean, retail banking is just so antiquated and the KYC stuff is even worse. It's even more nanny state, like moving money in and out. It's like you get a call from the back going, well, are you laundering money? It's like, come on, you know, how about you go after the real money launders and stop leaving us, like leave us small business owners small businesses we but you know yeah there's a bunch of tax but like i still don't understand the taxes and the the different things and then like we made a lot of money last year so i got a big surprise and things like withholding taxes and whatever but but it's kind of like a shogunai like i hire people to do that that's not my zone of genius i look at where i'm best spending my time and that's making new business making new money and then i hire people who are much smarter than me who speak much better japanese than me to who fill in the pieces.
Speaker: So yeah, hire smart people who know how to set up an electricity account and how to, yeah. But yeah, there's frustrations every day. Don't get me wrong. It's not like utopia. There's still a lot of things that I've just banged my head going, what the hell?
Speaker: but You mentioned you started out with arbitrage. I think back in, I don't know, when it 2012 to 15, all my friends in Tokyo, they were just renting apartments and re-renting it out. What was that like? It was very Wild Wild West, it seems like. Airbnb was new. Can you kind of describe the environment and climate during that time? Sure. It is but it was very wild, wild west. And there were a lot of people doing it very, very badly, I will say. And so people would think, oh, this is an IT product. You know, I just have to sort of manage the IT. It's like, no, no, no.
Speaker: I learned very early on that this is a human-based operation. You have a very big duty of care. People who stay in your apartment, who sleep under your roof, you have a duty of responsibility for them.
Speaker: And so that means not just safety, but cleanliness and all of those things. My job as a host is teaching people how to live like a local. It's not just like throwing people the keys and going, have at it.
Speaker: The people that were doing it badly were giving all of us a bad name. And I was, they weren't educating their guests because Japan is so different. Even how to use an air conditioner, how to use this, how to use that.
Speaker: We met every single guest early on so that we could make sure that they weren't knocking on the wrong door and causing problems for the neighbourhood. That was the biggest problem that people had. They weren't giving the guests accurate information.
Speaker: And so these poor, bewildered tourists were walking around with suitcases in the streets. And of course, there was a backlash. a Local people were going, who are all these people in my quiet little neighbourhood?
Speaker: Of course, there's a lot of fear. They don't speak the language. What is it? So There was a lot of people doing it badly, which was unfortunate. However, when the licensing came in, it was announced in 2016. It was rolled out in June 2018.
Speaker: That day is etched into my memory. a lot of people just went, nah, too hard, not going to do it anymore, which was great for me. and great for the people who were taking it seriously, who were wanting to actually make a business out of it.
Speaker: But yeah, the things that people were doing were a bit unethical as well. They were renting UR apartments, which are designed for low-income families, and they were renting them and then re-renting them, which I thought, oh, that's a bit gross.
Speaker: You should have a low footprint. You shouldn't be impacting your neighbourhood. You should be bringing... more abundance, sorry, that's a very woo-woo word, but you should be bringing more abundance to your neighborhood rather than taking.
Speaker: I always believe you should be giving more than you should be taking. I always run my businesses, but there were a lot of people who would just me, me, me, and like, it's not just the neighborhood. They weren't treating the guests very well either. It's for having a bad experience, which was unfortunate.
Speaker: And I guess I decided quite early on what my product was. and I wasn't just selling an alternative to a hotel as a cheap accommodation. That wasn't my product. So I built my product around what I was actually selling.
Speaker: And that was a local experience in Tokyo. And so I did everything to make sure that that was a complete product and that my guests knew what they were buying before they arrived. But that was through trial and error, though. Like, you know, I made a ton of mistakes and I usually learned from what mistakes other people made. And so you adapt and you realise what apartments are going to work, what apartments are not going to work, which neighbourhoods are not going to be friendly. If you have to try and sneak people in,
Speaker: Like, I mean, that makes your guests feel uncomfortable. Yeah, because people are always watching. I feel like there's always eyeballs everywhere Joey and I walk. Always are. People are, like, pulling the curtains open. Yeah.
Speaker: You look a bit shady, Tucker. That's what saying. <unk>s yeah I get that. sound Joey gets stopped at every airport though. just So when the when the government dropped the curtain and they imposed the, I don't remember the name, the Minpaku Law and then eat all the individual ordinances. if I've looked at some of that. i yeah We showed you ah a map I'm building a little bit before this podcast. So I've been sort of reading some of the different ordinances across Japan.
Speaker: And some of it to me seems a little bit like they all do it in a slightly different ways. And it's quite a complicated... web of laws. Do you have any opinions on the rollout? So when it first came out, was it and not? Did it feel organized? What was that like?
Speaker: So 2016 was when the law was passed. And because Airbnb lawyers were taking a victory lap because in so many other countries, it has just been outlawed.
Speaker: So the Airbnb lawyers really worked hard and said, okay, well, this is a thing. so we need to make it a legal thing. And so they had to really negotiate with the existing hotels and operators and also communities about what would be an acceptable law that everyone could live with. And so federally it came in as 180 days. So if you had a Minpaku licence, that was the maximum that you could rent.
Speaker: And that was fine. That was clear. And then what they did was to appease all the different factions and all the different cities and all the different local communities. They said we were going to allow them to add additional restrictions based on what is local on a case-by-case basis.
Speaker: And then some coups were a lot more strict because... of the politics and, you know, community and whatever, and other ones were a bit more open. And so you have to really know which one which ones are open to Minpaku and which ones were not, and that was very unclear.
Speaker: But then the cities, the each individual city, they took two years, right? Each individual city then could decide what was their particular rule and based on zoning and their street, then enacting that was then left to the city offices.
Speaker: But the cities were never given extra manpower to deal with the influx. They weren't given extra resources. And so when the laws actually rolled out, which was June 2018, think of the applications that had been submitted had been processed. five percent 5%.
Speaker: That was it. And that was because it was really daft things like, oh, on your documents, your name was in Romaji, and then this was in Katakana, and then it was back and forth. So you had to then read like, oh, no, this is not particular, had to go back.
Speaker: This is one of the frustrations which Jo I were talking about before. So Romaji and Katakana and then sometimes the Katakana is done like this and sometimes the Katakana is done by that. Don't get me started about Japanese web design. So anyway, it was back and forth, back and forth. And then so these poor, overworked, stressed city office people, they just want a simple life. You know, that's why they joined the civil servants, right?
Speaker: They were poor things. I feel so sorry for them They were getting a lot of hate, a lot of frustration because they weren't really given very clear instructions. It's settled down a lot now. I think everyone knows what they're doing. But June 2018, Airbnb had basically said, well, bookings that you've already got, if you've got the applications in and you haven't been approved yet, that's okay.
Speaker: But then it came back that the government went, no. So it was just changing on a day-to-day basis. follow up question, then we can talk more about practical stuff with Airbnb. Let's assume the laws have to be there. We can't get rid of the laws 180 days. But like, would you organize them differently? Do you have any opinions there?
Speaker: First of all, I'm a fan of regulations. And the reason I'm a fan of regulations is that that because of that duty of care element. And I think one thing that the regulations do very well is make sure that it's safe, that you have exit lighting, that the fire department has come in to make sure that a building is safe for humans to inhabit. I think that's really important, especially as you know, you guys work in Akia, there's some pretty horrendous not fit for human and inhabitants, right? So, but they're cheap.
Speaker: So that's, that regulations is to stop people dying. I'm a big fan of that. um Fireproof curtains, for example. All the things that you as a commercial business you should be doing anyway. It's stuff that we were doing before the change. How would I do it differently?
Speaker: Credit for people who are doing it well and having a fast track so that you don't have to go back to scratch every single time would be really helpful. Sometimes you have to be, especially if you're changing up to Bjorkan license, having ah building that's 10 minutes walk you know, having an office 10 minutes walk or wherever from from the place, I think that's not a good rule.
Speaker: I've got one place that is on a residential, it is one metre from a commercial zone. So that drives me nuts. Commercial, you could get the RioCam license. Correct. But here in Japan, as you know, there is no wiggle room. The rule is the rule is the rule.
Speaker: Even though I've been a good host, paid my taxes, submitted all my documents, and I'm bringing in lots of money to the communities. I buy the lantern at the Matsuri and I have really deep ties to all the other small businesses. And that's part of my business, I see.
Speaker: and I make friends with the Johnan. I make, you know, and and so I'm doing all the right things. Like, you know, come guys. For listeners who are pretty new to the space. So Minpaku is like basically private lodging. Is that what the term means? Right? Yeah. Minpaku came in into the lexicon. I'm a dictionary maker, remember? Okay. The lexicon in 2003. It was a combination of the Minshuku and Shaku.
Speaker: Shukuhaku. Thank you. So minshukus have been around forever and then shukuhaku is like accommodation. So it's become a new word. They combine different, different kanjis together.
Speaker: People have been able to stay in minshukus. There are minshukus, actually don't know. They like, Well, it's kind of like a family farm. Think about it as when people were roaming around and going from town to town, and you know, with places where there were no hotels. Like, this is Rio Khans, which is sort of like, you know, leisure places with onset and food and whatever. And there's like pensions, which is sort of the next level down.
Speaker: But Minshikas are more like you're renting so like ah a B&B or you're renting a room someone's farmhouse. Like an inn. like an old-timey inn. like it It is, but it's more it was more of a rural thing. It's more of a, like I said, you're moving around and you just need a place to stay. So so you like you room with a family, for example.
Speaker: ah kid Okay, Tracy, is hotel license really that much better than Minpaku license? Like 365 days, but it probably comes with a bunch more rules, right? Cutting in here, Ryokan equals hotel license for people who are in world. And to be fair, there is a different types of Ryokan licenses as well. There's simple Ryokan, which is one room or one dwelling.
Speaker: And then there's multi-room hotel, multi-room ryokans, which are like, need a front desk and you've got a building with like 10 or more rooms.
Speaker: And then there's another one, which is a share house dormitory license. So each of those are different. the The one where you would imagine that has a front desk and ah that has to have a 24-hour front desk.
Speaker: And that's like a normal hotel ryokan. What I have is a simple deal con, which is one room or one house. If you can get it, it just means that you don't have to report every two months.
Speaker: It means that when you list on the OTAs, it doesn't go dark at 180 days. You'll be able to get the bookings until the next fiscal year. And also it's handled by a different part of the government, which means that they're bit more chilled. If I ever had to show my inner workings, like if I had to ever show that I'm collecting my passports, if I ever had to show the IDs of the people who were staying, I could, but I don't have to submit that to the government every two months.
Speaker: That's all. Again, for listeners here, there's a couple different license levels. So Ryokan license is our hotel license, which is more loose. You can rent for 365 days a year in some of these licenses.
Speaker: There's the Minpaku license, which is almost synonymous with like short-term rental license, where you're limited to 180 days depending on ward. Or in some wards... weekend only and some of those weekends are friday to sunday and some of them are friday to monday in some wards it is also school holidays only as joey has discovered it's zone dependent and street depend street to street is sometimes different as well so you know rules everywhere here learn the rules and then smile and follow them
Speaker: So Tracy, put in the hat on of a customer, is obviously overwhelmed at this point with all these terms, all these rules. Let's role play here. I want to buy Akia in Japan and I want to run it as on Airbnb. you know You get that question a lot. here How do you respond to that? My first question is why?
Speaker: And that's not in a narky way or anything. It's just what are your reasons for being here? Because it won't be for yield. You've got to have... Nice. Great point. It won't be just for monetary yield.
Speaker: What is your non-monetary yield? That has to make sense as well, right? If you're looking for a pure investment, it's to have this easier investments, there's easier ways to make money.
Speaker: if it also contributes to another goal that you have be that as in you want a place to come hang out you want to build something beautiful you're an artisan there's so many opportunities if that also meets that need and you want to make a little bit of money to support yourself little bit of money like you want to have a business as well or you want to make a visa out of it whatever then that is the first hurdle the next hurdle is where the next hurdle is who's going to stay who's going to be your customer and then the next hurdle is have you created a product that matches the customer so product customer match and then how much you're going to sell it for and does that money match what your financial goals are due diligence always
Speaker: You nailed it. In our experience, we went in bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, being like, we bought this house in Beppu. It's like two years later, we're still renovating it. We're still making sure it has fire current because it's electric. We tell people the same thing, Tracy, that like you need a different reason. like Someone comes asking us about ah ROI and we're kind of like, we've made no money. You have to have a different reason. And that other reason needs to be very strong. yes like Stronger than the ah ROI one, I believe.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong. I love being here and I'm not trying to say don't come. This is a great place, but come with your eyes wide open. Whatever preconceptions you've got about ah ROI or about how real estate works in your country, leave it at the water's edge.
Speaker: Come in and enjoy, but you've got to learn. If you try to push your preconceived ideas into this, you'll just keep hitting brick wall after brick wall and you will be very demoralized.
Speaker: But if you come here just like, let's see what happens and let's work with what we've got, have fun and have an adventure, that's the right attitude to come in. and It's like, I need to make money. I'm like a money bro and like I need yield and it's a vanity metric. Yeah, like I'm sure that that happens.
Speaker: I just don't know how to help you. but Another average customer kind of take is they they want to buy a vacation home. They want to put on Airbnb just to keep the water running. yeah you know For those type of customers, would you recommend going to Mim Paku route, maybe monthly rentals? What would you say to them?
Speaker: but It depends on where and also depends on your property manager. So you're going to be out of town. You need to have a great property manager who is going to look after everything while you're away and also look after the guests while they're here.
Speaker: But before you buy your holiday home, you really need to make sure that it can be licensed and there is a good property manager in the area. This works really well if you're going into an established, say, ski resort.
Speaker: They're not cheap, but you get to come and have a ski holiday. And those ski resorts have a well-managed machine for handling guests. Beach resorts to a lesser extent, but still the same.
Speaker: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, fine. Absolutely great. Rural areas take a bit like, they're not an automatic yes, but You should know where you're going anyway because each community has a different vibe.
Speaker: And I'm sure you talk about this all the time, but you can't just plop yourself into Gooma and like go, hey, I'm here. I can go, yeah, okay, well done. So you you really have to know where you're going and why you're going there and also what infrastructure is already there.
Speaker: If you can get a Minpaku licence, I would. Second choice is getting a monthly rental. The problem about monthly rentals is that there's no marketplace, right? There's no central place where you can advertise. You can't list.
Speaker: This is really important information. You cannot list an unlicensed property on Airbnb or booking.com or any of them. So there's gone, like, you know, you're going to have to work super hard just to get monthly rentals unless you've got a whole bunch of family and friends who are going to pay you to come and stay for a month.
Speaker: That's a different kettle of fish. But having a license means that it's a more attractive prospect for a good property manager to take you on, that's when you're going to be making money.
Speaker: And 180 days is great because that means I have a lot of clients like this. but have They have their house. It's licensed. They get to use their house for six months of the year. Fabulous. And then for the other six months of the year, they're making, you know, good yield.
Speaker: Have you seen people get a visa out of this? Like i you know, sometimes we see some dreamers who are like buy the house, Airbnb it, and then use that to get the visa. so Have you seen that before? I haven't seen it. I know that there's a couple of people who do advise on that.
Speaker: And that's probably a bit above my pay grade. It depends on the area. And I think you have to live in the property as well. ah did see some interesting folks. They're running a honey farm and they're running a, Yeah, Shikoku, right? Or maybe. Yeah, and it's like they build a lifestyle.
Speaker: and But they're on like one of the niche, like the, what's that trail? Like the, you know. Oh, Nakasendo probably. Thank you. Oh, look, um I don't know. Nailed it, Taki. don't know. I'm first to admit I'm shocking with Japanese history and geography. I live in this little really weird bubble.
Speaker: But, yeah, so that's really popular for pilgrims and and people that are going that way. And they've really tapped into a niche. They've built a beautiful lifestyle for themselves. They have customers who love them.
Speaker: They've also got some side hustles with honey and, you know, they eat granola every day. They're like happy days. they They're so happy. And they've got a YouTube channel and and I'm sure people could find them. But they're absolutely living their dream life. So, yes, it's possible.
Speaker: I don't know the mechanics of getting that. Our listeners are, you know, let's say they still want to go for the meme paku. They're like, I want to hire Tracy. You know, Tracy, where do you, but what do you cover? You know, what what are your services? Where do you cover? What do you do?
Speaker: Sure. i I help people with a little bit of mindset, a little bit of real talk. I don't want to burst people's bubbles, but I also want people to go in with their eyes wide open. and tell you what you can expect.
Speaker: And I'm not the only person, you know, I think what people should do is talk to as many people as possible, listen to as many podcasts as you can, and then figure out what's right for you. So I'm just one of those voices.
Speaker: I help people figure out their mindset. Is this life for you? It's not a passive job. but People are not having great, great experiences buying properties and putting them on long-term rental. they're making share houses or they're making whatever. So there's different opportunities depending on what the individuals want.
Speaker: And I'm happy to be that sounding board. And if you've got some really good ideas, and bounce them off me and tell you how, if I think that's a viable option or that you should talk to this person or that person. So that's how you can work with me.
Speaker: I've also got a due diligence pack. I help people run their numbers and let them know if it's actually a smart thing to do. And also what I do actually is I help people design their ideal guest strategy. So this is all the checklists that you need to set up. And then also some tools like if you buy this, put it in this spreadsheet and then it collects everything up. I'll give people some tools on how to do it themselves.
Speaker: If you want me to do it for you, I'm certainly open to it and I can give you my rates. But I've also got this free diligence pack, which is like, what is it, $97 or something. and And it has a lot of these things in it that people can do it themselves.
Speaker: And it's got these, like, glossaries on what the zonings are and what the Japanese is and also what steps they have to follow and then who they should be talking to to at each step. let's say I want to buy something in Tokyo, I want to rent it out. You mentioned you don't do the licensing in particular, but do do the project management or even post management? I do a lot of that actually. So there's a people that I help who would live abroad and and they're renovating their place. So I'm doing the project management, I'm talking to the renovators and I'm just collecting their mail and their renewables and doing that stuff while they're abroad and then managing the renovations so
Speaker: and then also managing a scrivener like this year sure she who's actually doing the paperwork. And so I'm kind of like the central hub. And then sometimes I take that customer on in my property management business.
Speaker: That's two different businesses. There's like my min pau business, my Tokyo family stays, and then there's the consulting side. So if that's a good fit for both people, then I take them on in my portfolio.
Speaker: Or if it's not a good fit, it just means that their ideal customer is just not a match with my ideal customer, but I can assist in building that strategy for you. Because there's a key for every lock, right?
Speaker: Like the people that come and stay with my places are very different to say, you know, a premium customer or a like a Digi Nomad or whatever. It's like I look after my customer, but then there's different types of people coming into Japan.
Speaker: I remember talking to Anton Warman a while ago and he's like, Tracy's the number one hustler I know in Japan. you You got such an entrepreneurial spirit. What's the next business? Me and Joey are always thinking like, what do we do? Do we make an incense business or something? like What's on top of your mind? What do you think there's opportunity for? can't talk about it i've got some things in the play in the world that i can't talk about but yeah i've always got an idea as to i have a 50 million ideas day i act on some of them some of them are just bubbling away in the background you know i love real estate i love interestingly there's a business i really want to do and that's actually coin laundries
Speaker: Coin laundry, let's do that. I want a cash business too. I want to do a linen service and a coin laundry service. That would be real. like Because oh I'm too small for the the big linen rental companies. And also because my places are all spread out, I have to wash my linen on site. It's a beast for me to do.
Speaker: So like I would love to set it up. With coin laundries and like wash and fold services, that you know, for specifically for people my size. But again, that's time and effort. If someone wants to come help me, I'll give them the business idea and like be their advisor and then they can run with it.
Speaker: Happy day. Tracy, Jerry's been talking about a cash business, Jito Hanbaiki business. I think a coin laundry business is interesting. Because all the stuff is all rented, right? I've seen some amazing coin laundries that have like a coffee shop in them and a TV and yeah like free Wi-Fi. There are coin laundries here blow my mind. If you go to coin laundry and you put your phone number in, it will text you.
Speaker: when the wash and dry is done. I have not used one like that. That sounds cool though. Really cool. On that might drop moment, but but boom all right tracy well thank you so much for being here where can people find you where do you want people to contact i'm hardly a woman of mystery i'm sure you're going to put it in the show notes well do and yeah find me my business is called tokyo family stays who i serve what my customer is and where i am is built right into my brand i'm a branding and marketing nut ah so yeah tokyo family stays but also i'm in your yogi like i'm in between shibuya and shinjuku come for cup tea oh my well my door's always open
Speaker: and See you at the next Mexican taco party we have too. so but Yeah, buddy. Yay. Awesome, Tracy. Well, thank you so much. And yeah, I appreciate you being on here. Thanks guys. Take care. 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. It takes five seconds and really goes a long way. If you or someone you know is looking for a Japanese home, check out Akiyamart.com, our English-friendly site that lets you browse over half a million listings. That's A-K-I-Y-A-M-A-R-T.com to find your dream home in Japan.
Speaker: If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at akiyamart.com. You can also find us on Instagram as well as TikTok, where we post properties, tips on the home buying process, and updates on our own purchases and renovations.
Speaker: Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.
