Transcript
Speaker: I think it's harder to rent as a foreign national in Japan than buying just based on my own personal experience. I do see companies trying to address that problem as well. Although I do think like the main issue is like going to be supply constrained. In the U.S. it's like, give anyone that can rent at this price, please apply. But it seems like they cut the pool so much for foreigners and it's...
Speaker: It's hard. The agents also, is it's a free-for-all, right? Anyone can basically broker. And so there's maybe less incentive for them to push for that specific clientele. So you really have to find the right person to broker.
Speaker: Welcome back to the Buying a House in Japan podcast. We've purchased six properties in Japan in the past 24 months, and we've helped over 200 people do the same thing. We're recording today from the Tama House, Tama Base Camp, and we've got a special guest with us. Welcome, Ryan.
Speaker: For those of you out there who may not have met Ryan before, Ryan is helping us with um our Takamori company, which is our business here Japan. In Tokyo, he's our representative director. He's become a friend of the podcast ah for the past few years now. And he's also been such an incredible help to me personally, renting an apartment down in Ishigaki, down in Okinawa. And that's what we'd like to dive into today. All the hardships that it takes to rent an apartment as a foreigner in Japan. Welcome, Ryan. Thanks for having me again.
Speaker: Ryan, thanks for being on. ah For the listeners, I think that you've been on this podcast twice now. Correct. Give us a quick re-intro. Who the heck are you? Yeah, I'm usually doing financial planning for foreign nationals in Japan, trying to move to Japan.
Speaker: Met here we go Joey Take and been on Takamori for a little over a year now. A lot of different things happening and I'm always excited to be part of the team.
Speaker: Looking forward to helping you through the journey here. Heck yeah. tax Tax planning too, right? like there's There's a lot of cross-border taxation issues that you you help your clients with too? Yeah, tax becomes the biggest point of concern purely because of how little exemptions there are and how much exposure people could have.
Speaker: But not limited tax, but tax is the primary topic, i would say. Got it. And mostly focused on ah Americans with exposure to both USA and Japan? or A mix of different nationalities, but Americans primarily because of of the fact that they're taxed on citizenship, not on residency. So I think that's just a unique American wapwa consideration. But yeah, that's kind of in a nutshell.
Speaker: Fun fact, Ryan and I went to high school, probably like 10 minute drive apart from each other. Yep. Ryan, I think, how long do you spend in in the States? 18 and a half years or little Were you born in the US? and then you're Barely not born. Barely not born. So you're born in Japan, then you moved to California and then you moved back. Correct. For college onwards. Okay. And now you live permanently in Tokyo? Yes, I'm almost at the halfway point of spending half my time in the US and half in Japan. A little more, I think few more years, but it's getting there. Another fun fact, Ryan has twin girls and they go to French school, not US English school. but Yes. A lot of interesting considerations there. Primarily, the issue is me and my wife both have Japanese nationality. So a lot of international schools don't and of want us because on paper, we're just kind of this highly ambitious Japanese couple. Yeah. and Wait, they don't want you because of that? Well, they usually cater towards an international community, right? So they would need at least one parent to have a foreign nationality. They need.
Speaker: Interesting. Yes. Some don't, and the French school didn't. And there are other schools that do have maybe looser requirements. The issue is that the newer schools may not have nicer facilities or they're not in a desirable location. So considering all things, the French school is kind of there, available within driving distance. So... So if you were a white dude, you could get your daughters into English school.
Speaker: Probably. Okay. And then of course the issue is also tuition too. know, a lot of, yeah, schools have crazy tuition. So so it's a tough world. Dang. I remember when I brought the, I brought some Omiyage for your kids from Canada. And I remember you were it's written in French too. Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, it's exciting. And I'm trying to learn French, but French is a hard language to learn. I mean, Spanish similarities with ah the masculine feminine thing, but that whole masculine feminine thing just throws me off. like You just have to memorize it. There's no logic to it. so I agree. i was always I went to French school too. You went to French school too? Yeah. Well, it was French immersion. They call it in Canada. So like all your classes are in French, but everyone there, like all the kids, all your friends, everyone speaks English. Like we're not speaking to each other in French, like at recess or whatever. Right. So like, what are your daughters? Like, do they speak Japanese to the other kids during recess or what's the recess language?
Speaker: It seems Japanese is still the the main language. I think the reason being a lot of kids, what they do is, um so the school is on a weird cycle where seven weeks of class and then two weeks of vacation.
Speaker: And then it repeats that for the whole school year. Really? So what happens is during the two weeks, I put my kids into the friend's school and like a vacation program. Yeah. But a lot of kids go to a Japanese nursery school like Hoikwen. So what happens is that they basically have so much time with Japanese. I think a lot of kids, whether they be French or Japanese or half French, half, whatever Japanese, they end up just speaking a lot of Japanese. So it seems like that's the main language. And then French is still kind of like the school language. And then all some, I guess, English speakers as well. So it's a mix of everything.
Speaker: Yeah, my experience, like you can get at least sounds similar to maybe how I, the the French school, that French immersion school I was going to. And like, yeah, I feel like I got to the point where like, yeah, you can read the kind of textbook in French and like get by. But like when it came to speaking, if I had to like speak French or write French, it very difficult. So I think like very like passive learning of French language, I i think it's it's good for that.
Speaker: actually going to France and being able to hold a conversation, like maybe not so great. that's my That's like my Japanese learning. Just like learning the textbook stuff and like, I'm not speaking to Japanese to my friends during recess. I'm speaking English. Exactly, yeah. yeah um Anyways, we diverge. But Ryan, thank you. You've been our boots on the ground for Takamori KK, which has been our Japanese company. We could not have done it without you thus far.
Speaker: um I'm curious, like throughout this, I think year and a half journey thus far, what's been like one of the most memorable or wildest moments that you're like only in Japan? The coin laundry. It's certainly just just, it was an odd case. You know, I don't think it's it's standard. Like we shouldn't expect that from every type of transaction, but there was like a first, you know, official business. As a Japanese person, you were just like still like, yeah.
Speaker: transaction, just slow, you know, no response, ill family. Just how can you be so busy? Like Joey said is Even Trump's cutting deals during the presidency. Like this guy can sign one document. Yeah. you Listen to this first time we recorded episode. I don't know what episode number, but take a listen to it with Ryan. We basically had our coin laundry business. Unfortunately, the deal exploded and did not happen. But that but that that was a memorable experience, you know, like you said. But there are other smaller things happening in here and there that oh, wow, this is a learning experience. I think the renting thing that we're going talk about today is also another topic that was interesting.
Speaker: Okay. You really helped Joey. Uh, I know you were talking about before. Solid work. Thank you. Getting settled in Japan. Joey just got his visa. It's been like tax advice. Yeah. It's been a ton of work. Um, I guess what about that specific, just like the past couple of weeks has surprised you.
Speaker: Well, even getting into Japan, you know finding the right immigration lawyer to get the visa, I realize that that's very important. Not everyone has the same experience, so it's always good to ask around, figure out who you want to work with.
Speaker: Maybe their language capability is not... up to where you want it to be, but they may have the right skill set to get you the right visa. So I think there's a lot of different factors to consider. And obviously we tried to rent for Joey through the company and we thought, oh, it's a Japanese company. We have two fiscal years down. It should be good. But they still wanted to look at who the tenant was and then basically the same process as if you were renting it yourself. So it didn't really matter whether it be corporate or individual. They just look at whether you're a foreign national or Japanese. Totally. Let's jump into the rental process. So Joe, you want to give a little context on on your situation? Sure. um
Speaker: So my situation, I got the immigration visa, five year visa about a month ago. I entered the country and part of my goal, as I've mentioned a few times before in the podcast, liz live somewhere warm. So I had Okinawa in mind specifically. I picked this one island, Ishigaki, and so decided to go down there and start looking at apartments.
Speaker: um First thing I realized is that none of the large ah listings, websites like Sumo or At Home out there have much inventory. at all. Maybe Naha or like Okinawa, Maine Island does, but like these smaller islands, like I don't think that maybe they had one or two listings, you know, and there's like, you know, it's 50,000 people live on that island. So I would have expected more, but I had to use the local websites. And so like, you practice my, my Googling, uh, in Japanese. And I was able to find some, I think I narrowed down the list,
Speaker: to about eight properties, six six to eight properties I was interested in. i think the top three or four, I really didn't want to have to go down to the bottom four of the eight. I was really hoping for the top four there.
Speaker: And I would just say, as Ryan alluded to, i think we contacted maybe about six properties and One, the very first one that was interested in was Foreigner, okay. But there was, we can talk about it in a second. I just really did not think the layout made sense. There was like a bunch of rooms in there with no windows and very strange.
Speaker: Then the other four said no. And then the final one that I said to go to said yes. um But I agree. I kind of went in thinking this like, oh, we'll use the Japanese company as the Trojan horse. And it'll just be like, you know, a regular...
Speaker: You know, Japanese national to Japanese landlord, uh, or sorry, Japanese company Japanese landlord contract here. And I'll be the, you know, I'll be inside the Trojan horse, but did not work that way. How did that conversation go? Did they specifically ask like, who's the tenant or how did that go? I think you asked me some, some of the listings had indication whether foreign nationality is okay. Some didn't. So I just went in saying, Hey, you know, by the way, the person that's going to be living there is ah not Japanese. Are you okay? And then the most expensive one, the wakore, that that one was, was quite high. Like the rent is, that was my backup one. thousand And I was like, wow, that's, and then they said no foreigner entirely. And then club million, that one's very interesting. was, it's on top of a a cabaret club. Yeah. Club million. um um So I'm actually glad we did not go. Club Million fell through because that is a very noisy street. Okay. Yeah. It's a Cabakuda. Such a good name.
Speaker: But back back to the most expensive one. That was my like backup backup property. Yeah, it's expensive. But I thought, okay. And also I had been reading online kind of in Tokyo rental. They're like, okay, yeah. Like some of these places, you know, you find the the buildings that are foreigner friendly. Usually they're more expensive. they're charging a premium. But like, you know, you got to do what you got to do to be able to rent apartments. So that was my backup.
Speaker: And it was like 2000 maybe US a month to live there. Really nice three LDK, like really great views. That's the one I was like, oh, this looks like my friend Mike's apartment. yeah, but they yeah they said no Okay. So you're looking at Ishigaki, Southern most Island, pretty much of Japan, 30 minutes, like very close to Taiwan, right? Yeah. Tropical weather, small Island, like not too much supply or like how, how was the supply in comparison to some of the other islands or areas? Uh, so I, I didn't even bother looking at other islands, but I think the list of the eight that I had selected, that was every single listing available. That wasn't one doom, like, uh,
Speaker: a small studio apartment. It was like that, that's the complete list of rental units on the island at that time. How many were that? There was eight or like um six to eight. I can't remember exactly on the entire island.
Speaker: Anything above like one, a studio, there was only eight Yeah, like, you know, it's kind of, think of like the APA hotel room kind of thing, maybe a tiny bit bigger. Like two bedroom, anything two bedroom plus, basically. Even even one bedroom plus.
Speaker: And that's just for domestic renters as well on these websites? Yeah. Wow, only eight? Only eight. So that's why was kind of like, okay, not not a lot supply. A lot of the eight, too. Only like three of them were foreign friendly, of which two said women only. Which is completely random. Okay, well, I'm going to dive into that. So, okay, going back to it. through So there's eight total supply of potential candidates for Joey to move to. Yep. He wanted to... there was There were a bunch more shoeboxes online. No shoeboxes. Like, you got to have an office kind of room or something. We we got you to do work here. um
Speaker: You wanted to pursue it initially by yourself, right? Or like, we you know, you wanted to personally rent it or did you want to rent it under the company? Do you want to talk about that or... I knew that I think we started right away from the company. I just knew that it was going to be like you hear those horror stories online, maybe not horror stories, but like frustration stories online, even renting in Tokyo. And I just thought, OK, we've got the Japanese company. Let's do it through the Japanese company. It's going be easier. I didn't consider doing it myself. So for for the listener, I think it's even yeah it's even more restrictive if you are just a straight foreigner moving to Japan and wanting to rent, right? Well, maybe not. As we learned, like even through the Japanese company, they're still very concerned about who the tenant is. so Right. So it's like they look through the company anyway. so Okay.
Speaker: The important part, it seems, is if your visa status, Joey, fortunately, has a five-year visa, which is very rare from landing. So if you have a shorter visa period, usually the lease term is two years. So if it's like a one-year visa, I think there's even they limited selection because the first question that I was asked is, so how long is his visa? visa And then if they said if I said one year, then I think the owner may not have wanted to contract with us. So oh that was a key factor is that it was longer than two years. So he didn't realize that. Great job for the immigration attorney. Yeah, let's go. She did a wonderful job. um Wow, I didn't realize the the visa limitations. So yeah, if you're coming on the one year, which seems to be the main, it seems like the the the government is shifting towards more one-year visas and they're raising the visa fees, so more revenue for the government. But yeah, even harder to rent an apartment, I would expect. So if, again, some ah listeners is looking at Ishigaki, where do they start from a website perspective? what were like Are there a lot of rental websites or just generally in Japan? We haven't really touched the rental space with Akiamart.
Speaker: There were maybe, I would say three. So if you, you know, are Googling that type of thing, you know, Ishigaki, chintai, those type of rental, you know, i don't know the exact translation of chintai, but like in Japanese, if you're Googling for like rental options in Ishigaki, there's a list maybe I saw of like 10 websites out of those 10, I would say three are usable. Um, the other seven were just like, uh, honestly I would describe the websites as like too far gone. Too hard to navigate and really like perform an effective search or like pictures are just too bad or very difficult to use. um
Speaker: Three were not so bad. And that's where I found the the eight units. But they're all like very local websites. Uchina, Fudo, you know, something like that. Okay. Okay. So opportunity also, uh, again, we haven't touched the the rental market. It seems like this, you're the first Guinea pig here, uh, from our side to go through it and boy, it sounds like it's been a headache here.
Speaker: Um, I mean, Ryan ryan made it made it way easier. i don't think I would have an apartment yet if it wasn't for Ryan. Ryan, so after Joey got this this eight list here, talk walk us through what was like that, how did you contact him? What was that process? So I went from the order that Joey had it. And then once I figured out which ones Joey could select from, that that was kind of the first process. But even then, you know, like... ah They said, oh, it's foreign, but women only or no foreigners. you calling, emailing? Calling. Okay, you're calling and you're... Calling is much easier because some of them, like three of them are listed on the same websites. I just wanted to ask about all three in order. And then it's funny because they're like, oh, is this person a technical intern? like Everyone asked me that. so Everyone asked you that? think that if there's a foreign national in Ishigaki, they don't think it's just because they want to live there, but it's because they're there to work. What's a technical intern? So they're changing the system or it's it's already changed. But essentially, it's just people who are working in these remote areas of Japan, manual labor generally. so They didn't think anyone wants to be there. Ishigaki is beautiful. It is amazing. yes It's like the Hawaii of Japan. Not quite, but like ah approaching. Okay. Okay. So eight eight listed. How many were candidate okay or okay potentials for So three were foreign friendly and then two women only. So we only had one. That was club million. Wait, wait, wait. So of the eight, three were foreign friendly. No, we only contacted like six. I don't think we bothered with that. Contacted. So top six or whatever.
Speaker: three ah Half of that, 50% of them were OK with foreigners living there. Of that half, two out of three were only women only. Correct. So you had one option. had one option, which is the one I got. Joey, we have one choice. you want to just apply? There's no reason to wait. Yeah, exactly. So we signed the contract, sight unseen. was just like, all right, don't have really a choice. And on paper, it seemed pretty good. The photos, I would say, it looked clean in the photos. And neighborhood-wise, hit the nail on the head. It's right by the library, which I've already been making of these. You had gone simultaneously, though. You had signed the lease already, and then you went down for two weeks? Or what was that? Around the same time. can't remember what came first, if I landed first and then we signed the lease or like, but around the same time. But I wasn't able to see inside the unit until much later after signing the contract. Okay. And then even rewinding it further, you went to Ishigaki to visit a couple of months ago, right? So you kind of knew, hey, I want to live here.
Speaker: then you got technically signed the lease and then you went again to go check it out a couple weeks ago. The town of Ishigaki is, is really walkable, I would say, and kind of like the main, uh, downtown core there. And so I wanted to be in that walkable, um, perimeter.
Speaker: And so I had a ah certain few neighborhoods I was looking for. So yeah, I learned that on my first trip there, maybe like four or five months ago. Got it. And do you think things would have been different had Joey just done with his personal name versus our our company?
Speaker: Maybe. I mean, I think I presented to the realtors that there's a Japanese person to contact. I think it's just yeah for church' easier for them to to work through me. I mean, okay hypothetically, Joey could be completely fluent and he could have had it on his own. But I'm assuming that a lot of listeners here may not may not have that language capability. So I think it is definitely helpful for the other side dealing with ah this conversation to have a little more comfort that there is a Japanese person that they can just call if anything happens. Even if after you become a tenant, if there's something that happens, then they could call you instead of maybe the tenant.
Speaker: i do I do think that's probably the main um concern when these landlords or real estate companies are rejecting foreign clients. I think it's the communication concern And we saw a little bit of that when there was another property in Ishigaki for sale that through ah one of our real estate agent friends we had tried to contact. It was one of these kind of shoe boxes, but potentially a good investment property. And that real estate agent, I had been talking to him a long time ah before about me personally buying a property there. So when when he approached this seller, he said that I was trying to buy this property personally. And the seller ah said no, no, no gaijin buyers. And the reason that they stated was, oh, it might be difficult to communicate the building rules or like the the buyer might not fully understand the building rules. So whether that is just an excuse or not, that's at least the excuse that they state. I feel like when when they reject clients sometimes.
Speaker: Got it. So so i'm good I'm hearing like tip number one is appear Japanese as possible when applying for this rental. And even then, it you know, so one out of eight or one out of six. okay So Joey, you guys applied for it. What happened after that? Or, you know, was it very quick to sign a contract or you know, what what did that look like?
Speaker: I would describe it as not very quick. Again, this is my first time ever going through a rental process in Japan. But to even like view the apartment, I think it was like two-week wait time, maybe about two weeks to see it. And then I don't get the keys until mid this month. So like then another like maybe like a month and a half delay before moving, even though the apartment is completely empty right now. And all the comms have been going through Ryan.
Speaker: Other comes going through, Ryan, yeah. I think they're they're quick to respond, though. But it's just like. They were doing some work on it because I think the prior tenant left and then they had to do a little bit of renovations. So i think that's the reason for the delay. But overall, think the main issue also was making sure that the guarantor company approves us. Okay, what is a guarantor company? So if you fail to pay your rent, this guarantor company will pay the the landlord on your behalf and then the guarantor company will charge you. So they're there's more or less like an insurance for the the landlord that we we have to use. And every rental in Japan, most rentals in Japan need a guarantor company. Is that right? I think it's more popular now to use a guarantor company because in the past you would sign up relatives or family members.
Speaker: But I think if you're Japanese, it's okay, maybe. But if you're a non-Japanese, then it becomes difficult to have someone to ah rely on. So I think that's why the guarantor company thing has become such a staple in the environment. If I was a Japanese-based citizen, could I be a guarantor for Joey in this situation? Or is it yeah better to... could. But legally, that means that you have the same obligations to pay...
Speaker: any liabilities would they do like a credit check on me or something or like how as the real estate company would they be like question but potentially they might if if you're not blacklisted i think they might have certain lists that they could go through but as long as you're able to become a guarantor but didn't but you say that the seller's side or the the landlord side picks the guarantor company though because i i was like oh what i know there's like i've heard rumors of foreign friendly guarantor companies in tokyo and i was like Okay, we're going to, I was like, we'll pass this, no problem. We'll just pick a very foreign friendly guarantor company.
Speaker: But I thought you mentioned that, oh no, this the landlord gets to decide. The landlord this time designated company. So I'm not sure if there's any. So they wanted, we want this guarantor company to be, okay. But we didn't want rock the boat too much because Joey only has one choice. So I think if there were more options available, then we could have been a little bit more on the table negotiating things. But this time around, we just wanted to keep it steady.
Speaker: Understood. And Joey, can you describe actually, sorry, one more time, how much did the apartment, how much, what is the rent? Like how big is the apartment? Like describe the apartment a little bit. So it's a two LDK, which, um, for people that don't understand the Japanese layout system, two basic bed, roughly two bedroom. In this case, I would say it is a true two bedroom. Um, And then the LDK describes the kind of main kitchen living room area. Sometimes the living room is is designated as a separate room and it would go on to the three LDK. But in this case, I believe the living room and kitchen is part of the LDK. So roughly two bedroom, large kitchen living room type area. um It also has a balcony, which I would describe as medium-sized balcony. Pretty good. And the balcony has a view of... You get some some what some ocean view there, which is nice. ocean view there's a oh They built um a man-made island off the kind of ah town of Ishigaki there. And now that's where the cruise ships dock. But there's kind of like ah a cool bridge that like curves a little bit. And I have the view of the water and the cool bridge that... is curved and lights up at night. that's pretty nice. And then in one of the other bedrooms, the only one with AC, there is a a different view of the water, but it's more like the industrial kind of harbor Ishigaki. How much how much is rent? Fifth floor, penthouse. You penthouse? Penthouse, yeah. There is it there is an elevator. Okay. No roof access. Zero to hero here. Let's go. It's nice. so rent 8.4 mon,
Speaker: which is eighty eighty four thousand yen which is what, like $600 a month US? six hundred Less than $600, yeah. Less than $600, potentially. That's crazy. Pretty good. Okay. Building is built in 1991. Okay. I would say... Concrete? Concrete, yeah.
Speaker: Signs of wear and tear. But in general, I would say many Japanese buildings seem to... have that look to them. um But i don't mind that at all. Right above two Yakiniku restaurants. I don't know if like I put laundry out to dry. Is it going to smell like ah Yakiniku? But pretty good. Like 30 second, one minute walk to the library and the main park on Ishigaki Island. So not Club Millennium, though.
Speaker: Not Club Million. club million and and um And it comes with parking. Parking is an extra 5,000 yen per month. But yeah, sorry. Club Million was interesting. club Actually, just just a quick note on Club Million. That was maybe my first top choice. i was like, okay, i want Club Million.
Speaker: I would say location-wise, initially I thought better. It's right next to the... You see the park. The bedroom windows, you oversee the park. But very noisy street. One of the noisier streets, I would say, in Ishigaki. And it's right above Kyabakuda. So maybe even more noisy here from... But they said women only. So roughly $600 all in is kind of what you're looking Monthly. Then the initial upfront is usually roughly five months of rent. So you need to pay a guarantor company. $4,000 to move in maybe. You need to put in the first month of rent. You need to put
Speaker: ah Key money, Reikin, which is just like gift one month of rent that you give. Another important term, key money, right? So key money is expected in every rental? Not every, but customary for most. Some said no. Some some like on the listings were like, no Shikikin, no Reikin even. Some said that. what For the listeners, what is Shikikin? What is Reikin again? Shikikin is a deposit. Okay.
Speaker: It's a security deposit. Hopefully you get it back. You net off any expenses when leave. I've heard horror stories about actually. Yes. And then the reeking, which is the key money, is just one month of rent that you give. And then every time you renew a contract, there's usually a contract renewal okay fee, which is basically like a reeking as well, one month of rent usually. okay And properties that don't have reeking usually is owned by the person who's renting it. So okay a lot of times if there's an intermediary, then you also pay intermediary their commission. So the how much was the shikikim? Shikikim, reeking. They're all one month.
Speaker: Brokerage fee, move out cleanup fee, which is like a percentage of rent, I remember as well. Okay. So sorry, Shikikin was one month's rent. Daykin was one month's rent, roughly? Roughly. I don't remember the exact. I feel like it was like 400,000 to move in.
Speaker: Okay, in total. So like all these fees, in in addition to paying rent, you needed to pay $4,000. Well, I think one month of rent is the first month is actually included in that. okay so Yeah, so about 400,000 yen, little less than $3,000 maybe. Yeah, okay.
Speaker: Just to move in, including the first month's rent. Dang. Okay. How did the paperwork application perspective on your end kind of look, Ryan? appreciate We got to e-signing. That was good. and That's great. Did you have to hunko something or like you know no paper? E-signing everything. So it is what it is. but Overall, the communication with the realtor was was fine. you know There's no hiccups. I mean, there's issues with one room not having an AC. okay And we wanted the landlord to install it, but he said no. so And sorry, where did the guarantor company... Did you pay that money to the guarantor company? Or do you pay it to the real estate company? or like where Part of the the fee that Joey described includes like money you need to pay to the guarantor company. So it's certain. I think the first...
Speaker: Payment is 50% of the rent. And then, then there's like a small percentage that you pay each month. Okay. And they basically use that as a reserve. And then if you fail to pay rent, then they would pay on your behalf. So you don't really pay the guarantor company. You pay everything to, uh, the landlord or the realtor. And then they would, yeah, divvy it up to the respective parties.
Speaker: Great. That makes our life easier. Um, Direct debit, you think? Or are they actually going to take the cash? Yeah, direct debit from our Japanese bank account, which is another prohibitive thing, potentially, if you are just moving here, right? Oh, yeah. That was another learning experience where you're technically considered a non-resident for banking purposes for usually the first three to six months. So the only banks that seem to want foreign nationals are Yucho, which is the JP Post Bank. And then Rakuten also didn't have a residency requirement.
Speaker: Other banks all had at least three months of residency in Japan. So let's again, Joey's maybe a unique case in here. You get like, let's say I i'm i just bought an Aki or whatever. I got my visa to Japan. i don't have a bank account. I'm entering the country.
Speaker: I can't rent anything until I get a bank account. Does that sound right? You can't pay cash or anything. Maybe you could pay cash, but I think they that could be a... Well, you can get a UTO bank. You can get the JP Post bank account. Okay, so got a visa. You go first step is get the maybe mobile SIM... You can get a real SIM card. Get a real SIM card.
Speaker: Get a bank account, right? So the i didn't I didn't do this because I had some of the pieces already together, but it sounds like when you're when you're just immigrating to Japan, that the way to do it is first you get the the first you get your Zaidu card, then you go to the city hall and you get that your address put on the Zaidu card, which can be, I think, your hotel number or Airbnb. Initially, they just need something. And then you get the phone number.
Speaker: ah Again, i think putting your address, I don't know if you need an address to the hotel address, And then like you get the JP post with the phone number and then you can rent an apartment. Okay. Okay. We'll talk to Carlos actually about this in little bit. He's one of our friends who, who just met here. Yeah. But even then I was like not confident in the chick. It's it's a little bit chicken and eggy. And I think there is one path, but like you got to use your hotel address for a little bit apparently. Okay. Got it. um Cool. So.
Speaker: You got accepted. we pay You pay the deposit. like what Any other things in there that was kind of confusing? I think a few things ah that I noticed, and again, i do feel like I was asking for things outside of the lines here. but so i went to i was in Ishigaki last you know up until maybe a week and a half ago, and I had brought down two large suitcases expecting to be able to leave some stuff there. No way, Jose. They said no. I was like, okay. I wanted to, you know, my wetsuit and like snorkel and that kind of stuff. i didn't want to have to bring it back to Tokyo and then bring it back. So they said no to that. um
Speaker: Could the landlord install the AC in that room? They said no. Could we install an AC in that room? Like before I move in, they said no. So just like, you know, a lot of like getting told no. Again, I'm asking for stuff out outside of the lines here, but I do wish that they had a little bit more flexibility.
Speaker: And you got a two-year lease? It's standard two-year lease. I think next time I would want to negotiate the term longer because, like I mentioned, the renewal fee happens at every renewal. So if the lease term is longer, you can kind of defer that. Meaning if you decide to leave before, let's say past two years, but before whatever the new contract date is, then you would incur that additional fee. So it does help. What what are the rental like ah pre laws or like the how much can they raise the rent you know at that two years? is there some kind of i know in Japan, generally, the the loss favors the renter versus more of the landlord. So like did any idea on how much they could jack up your rent? like Could they double it? don't know. I think there is a legal limit, but there has to be justification for you to do it. So I think the most...
Speaker: common occurrence is during the renewal they'll negotiate the new rent but I don't think they'd be able to raise the rent during the term of the contract so I think that's usually the rent protected part of Japan that's very beneficial which is think different than maybe other countries so I think once you get the contract then usually you're in a good place okay The other thing that I noticed, and I think this is across the board in Japan, the only other place I rented apartments is New York City, so I'm just comparing it to New York. But units here don't come with laundry, no washer, dryer, and they don't come with a fridge, which is like... Completely unfurnished is the standard long-term rental in Japan. Yeah, and it also... It's a good opportunity, though, for you to, I think, renovate. Can you renovate, actually? If Joey didn't like the floors, could he...
Speaker: Depends, but with approval of the landlord. And then there's also whether the landlord is okay with you keeping those when you leave or they want you to put the original flooring, let's say, back. So there's a lot of negotiation that needs to be done. And like, why would I do that for the landlord? You know, giving him equity gains. For two years. Toilet? You got to change that toilet. but so yeah so i think that so So first thing is that, yeah, completely unfurnished. No washer, dryer, no fridge, nothing like that. You've got to buy all that and take it out with you when you leave. It also seems like land it was described to us once before. It's like if ah if you as a landlord, so when we ah bought the keep the the property in Ketakushu and we have a long-term tenant in there, part of the advice given to us was like,
Speaker: Don't. So there was no, there was no ACs when we bought it. Part of the advice was, oh, when, and we did a light renovation too, was don't put an AC in there because if you put an AC in there, you're you're responsible for fixing it. If it breaks, the tenant's going to complain to you versus if you kind of force that on the tenant, they bought the AC, they put it in. It's their responsibility to get it fixed if it breaks. So, um, maybe that's part of the reason why there's no fridge, no washer dryer, that kind of stuff because the landlord's responsible for it. I don't know.
Speaker: That's true. And then I think AC is probably the bare minimum that most landlords would install. But beyond that, they they wouldn't. Not even light. I think that's about it. Interesting. So from like start to finish, I guess we're not at finish yet. Like how long did this process take from actually once you've identified this property I'm eligible for to keys in hand?
Speaker: Key's not in hand yet. Key's not in hand, supposedly going to be in hand. I think you could do it three to five weeks, depending on how much additional checks they have to do for like the guarantor company. And think if you're a Japanese, it could be much faster. But if you're non-Japanese, I think you should expect the longer timeframe, like five weeks.
Speaker: Okay. yeah Not too bad. Yeah. The other thing about these islands as I'm coming to realize is it's hard to buy from, I think Amazon seems to work pretty well. Although I have heard, um, people down there say that like, Oh, sometimes you buy something and then the seller will, or the the vendor will say like, Oh, I don't ship to Ishigaki, but like places like Ikea, uh, Nitori, et cetera. Like they don't ship down there. You gotta got to figure out ways they'll ship to Naha, but they won't ship all the way to Ishigaki. So that last leg, you got to figure out yourself.
Speaker: They do have like a home center, like a hardware store there where it seems most people will buy fridges and bed frames and that kind of stuff. If you guys were to like redo this again, Eddie, would you do anything different? i see It seems like it went pretty smooth once you got the the property and and like identified, right?
Speaker: Not much you can do differently. I think we're kind of at the mercy of the one apartment that accepted us. Yep. I think you were unique you guys were uniquely positioned in that we already had the bank account set up. We had Ryan to help. We had a lot of this like smooth, pre like the tools to make this process quite smooth. It could have been much worse, I believe. Oh, it could have been much worse. I think we did it pretty well. like This was, for me, at least,
Speaker: with your help, quite a smooth process, just slower than I expected. But that's also like, people are also like, it's kind of, you know, stuff on the islands goes a little slower anyway. was going to say it's a very Okinawa thing perhaps, but having the Japanese person in the front to represent you just gives a lot of comfort to other side. And, you know, it's all optics. It really means nothing beyond that, but that's very important, right? It's just part of business and whatever that makes it smooth and whatever that makes it easy for everyone.
Speaker: It reduces the unknown factor on the seller or on the other agent side, right? Right. Like I'm this Japanese person that they think that I'm going to be here. So worst case, you know, they can find me. There's a flight risk for foreign nationals for obvious reasons. So I think usually that's just the comfort factor there is that they have someone to go to if something happens. So I met the real, so I was eventually able to see inside the apartment and like matched the expectations. was pretty good. Maybe just like a little dusty boot prints on the floor because they had contractor coming in and out. But when I was speaking with the real estate agent and she was like, oh, would you like me to, you know, asking about communication? I had a few questions and she's like, I'm not sure. I'll email you back. And was like, oh, please email my boss, Kubo Zona-san, that kind of thing. And I was like, so I tried to really make the story fit. It was so funny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think the communication will go through you.
Speaker: Sure. There you go I think a lot of this rental, this new rental process for us and and we're learning, but a lot of it does mimic, I think the purchasing process, quick plug, we have a program called Akiyamart Direct in which we can help you as a foreigner buy in Japan. And I think we we adopt a lot of the same strategy of kind of like we have our Japanese facing agents do most of the communication. So a lot of times in these rural areas, when we help people buy Akiyamart, it's going through them, not through, they don't necessarily see or talk to the foreigner and reduces that,
Speaker: uh hesitation but um what was i saying seems like also there's a lot of opportunity here like the rental space is just like even harder than buying an akio would you say joey Yeah. I think it's harder to rent as a foreign national in Japan than buying just based on my own personal experience. There's a few. I do see companies trying to address that problem as well. Although I do think like the main issue is like going to be supply constrained. Like they're going to have to go around and figure out which units are, you know, foreign or friendly. And then once those get rented, you know, and I think those are few and far between. And like, how do you How do you keep that supply on your website? I think it's probably the main challenge for business thinking like, oh, I think I can fix this problem.
Speaker: Yeah. It's interesting. I think looking at the real estate sites, I know there's like a specific checkbox. It's like foreigner friendly, yes or no. And like the number dramatically decreases sometimes. i think it was looking at Tokyo or actually Tama region.
Speaker: I haven't seen that on the public websites, but that was like a real estate agent specific. That might have been the back end. Yeah. We were looking at some some database, but like it's crazy. the Not discrimination or like the openness. Like that wouldn't, in the U.S. it's like, can anyone that can rent at this price, please apply. But it seems like they cut the pool so much for foreigners and it's,
Speaker: it's hard for foreigners to rent a place. And rental, the agents also, is it's a free-for-all, right? Anyone can basically broker. And so there's maybe less incentive for them to push for that specific clientele. yeah So I think it's going to be hard to find a realtor who's just willing to go the extra mile. So you really have to find the right person to work with. Or you know you have someone representing you, which will make life much easier.
Speaker: Business opportunity for us, Joey. I think it's interesting as we as we go into rentals. Hard problem to solve, I think. Yeah, I think the next opportunity or next thing that we want to try is buying a condo and and maybe renting that out.
Speaker: Could be interesting. And Joey, I guess a lot of listeners are probably asking, like, why didn't you buy in Okinawa Ishigaki if it was easier to buy than... I tried, actually. that Back in November, I tried to buy a unit. Actually, I went to go see this unit, too, and it's very small. Like, again, the shoeboxes.
Speaker: Ishigaki, I think prices are inflated, um, kind of very similar to like Miyoko, I would say. i don't know. It's tropical, probably crazier, but like tropical Island, they get a lot of tourism there, just Japanese national tourism. um Or it's close to Taiwan, so I do i think there's like lots of cruise ships that come through Taiwan as well. But prices are high there. So this I was looking at it was about $40,000, $50,000 for like a very, very tiny room. I think it was maybe like 110 square feet total. Okay. What about meters? Including kitchen and bathroom. 10 square meters? Yeah.
Speaker: I don't remember. I don't know. meters heyi That's like a literally like an Apple hotel. Yeah. Yeah. For about $50,000. But that's like the only thing that was on, you know, again, low supply on the market, but that was the only thing there. And then this, uh, the other property i alluded to before the the other shoe box we were thinking of purchasing and they rejected, me as a buyer, also very small, same price range. Um, and both, uh, got rejected for two different reasons. The, the latter was for being a foreigner. The former was, they decided to sell, uh, as a collective, all the people, all the units in the building to a developer from Tokyo. So two different reasons there, but I did try to buy and it fell through twice. It's funny. You're calling it the Ishigaki Gulag, right?
Speaker: Both. I think you call them both the Ishigaki Gulag. So we did say, okay, we just said, like oh, it's easier to buy than rent, but both times were difficult in Ishigaki. I think it's an island thing. I do think like people that live on islands are protective of of who's coming in. So I think it's's we saw something similar in Yakushima. So i think it's I think it's more of like an island ah thing. think it's a healthy thing. you know i like I lived in Oahu for a long time. There is that, like hey, not resentment, but a little bit of resentment, like these rich dudes coming from California and buying up
Speaker: our island like. Yeah, exactly. yeah I understand that. you know um All right. So for both you guys, my final question, you know if you're giving advice to someone who is looking to rent a property instead of buying in Japan, what are your what are your thoughts? What are your tips?
Speaker: but first off, like, like be written, like be okay with rejection. Like it's going to happen, happened. Like I didn't truly believe it. Maybe, maybe like, you know, I kind of thought, Oh, with this Trojan horse, Japanese company, I'll be the exception proof was not the exception. Uh, even then. So yeah, just, I think like one out of six success rate, what's that like 15% little 17% success rate. Um, be prepared for like that, that level. Um,
Speaker: cups yeahp What about you, Ryan? I guess if you have only English-speaking capabilities or non-Japanese capabilities, then your options are already limited and then further limited.
Speaker: So it's better to have a local some kind of local support. At least that'll open up your pool. Whether that increases your chance of getting rental may or may not increase, but at least it'll help you, so your selection and and help the process. So have someone locally to help you.
Speaker: Yeah, there's like a virtual assistants, you know, find them on LinkedIn. We've worked with some of them in the past. Really, I would i would recommend services like that for even like travel booking, that kind of stuff.
Speaker: That's what I would do, Ryan. If you weren't here, I think i would I would find a virtual assistant on LinkedIn who can speak professional Japanese and just be like, hey, I'm representing this client. to reach out because I do think that it starts the conversation off on a better foot than if you're trying to fumble through or like trying to speak to them in English from the get-go. butchered English message or a super long pair. Like if someone sent me an essay and I'm a Japanese guy, I'm like, I'm not going to read this in English and try to figure it out. Clear communication from the get-go in Japanese. i would pay for a virtual assistant to help you. yeah Okay. Good advice, guys.
Speaker: Light bulb moment. I think this is an opportunity to hopefully do a rental product. okay ki yeah I think difficult, but could be. Big problem to solve. Okay. but Yeah. Cool. Well, Ryan, thanks for coming by again to our time at house. Thanks for all you dropped over like six bottles of whiskey here. i don't know. I'm trying not to drink alcohol, but I appreciate you. The next six years worth of whiskey.
Speaker: Cool. Well, thanks so much for being here. And yeah, we look forward to more fun projects with you soon. Yes, definitely.
Speaker: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Buying a House in Japan. If you find the show helpful or at least entertaining, give us a five-star rating. Takes five seconds and really goes a long way. If you or someone you know is looking for a Japanese home, check out Akiyamart.com, our English-friendly site that lets you browse over half a million listings. That's A-K-I-Y-A-M-A-R-T.com to find your dream home in Japan.
Speaker: If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at akiamart.com. You can also find us on Instagram as well as TikTok, where we post properties, tips on the home buying process, and updates on our own purchases and renovations. Thanks again for listening, and we'll see you next week.
