Transcript
Speaker: Japan was never on the map for me. Everybody who liked Japan when I was very young, it was just the nerds, the people with pink hair and blue hair, people liked anime and- Taki is one of those. Japanese, I grew up on anime and manga. In 2018, I finally made the move, purchased a unit. It was an old rundown unit. No one wanted to touch it because it was 30 years old. It was a way for me to get attached to Japan. My Japanese was far from fluent, but with that move made, you kind of have to make it work.
Speaker: Welcome back everybody to another exciting episode of the buying a house in Japan podcast. I'm your host, Joey joined by cohost Take. whats so We are sitting in a very special place right now and we are joined by another very, very special guest. This podcast is a long time in the making. We're here with Anton Warman, a good friend of ours for the past few years, author, real estate mogul in Tokyo and a phenomenal interior designer, I would say. Yeah. Welcome to the podcast. angel got that was i Thank you so much, Joey and Tuckett for having me or I mean, thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. Wow. I'm so impressed by this house. And like I hadn't, I'd seen all your videos, but I hadn't realized like how close proximity literally all your Airbnb or all your properties were, but
Speaker: Man, great great work. Thank you very much. Thank you for being here. It's it's hard to catch this feeling on totally on social media and online. like You can kind of show it off, but like you as you say, you've got to be here in real life too. We walked in here. It smelled so good. The wood, walls, panels, we we were honestly quite blown away. Thank you very much. Come in ah come and stay next time if you're tired of your Tama place. Tama place is pretty sweet. You should come stay too.
Speaker: um Whoa, so it's crazy to be here. You really started our Akiya journey in many ways. I think as many people have seen your content. I remember buying your book and actually reading it from front to back pretty quickly. And I was like, OK, Joey, I think we're ready to to go for this Akiya at this point. Arigatou gozaimasu. And now you've done very well for yourself as well. so Thank you. Thank you very much. That book, no ChatGPT, right? That was all Anton g GPT? I tried working with ChatGPT, but it just it didn't feel right. So I needed to structure it all by myself and then write all the chapters out.
Speaker: And then there were so many things that kind of isn't available online that I kind of needed to contribute to the market with that like, because no one had written a book about Akiyas real estate in Japan from a personal perspective. It's going to make something up if you tried to get it to right. Yeah, exactly. So there there were a lot of factual kind of misses and like sometimes the real estate market in Japan is very gray. So there were a lot of things that kind of the internet tells you it's correct, but yeah in real life it's very different. so
Speaker: No ChatGPT in the beginning and then I had a few editors in the in the US who helped me kind of make it into a final product because I had no... ah I mean, English isn't even my mother tongue and I had no experience with writing books before. so But I think the yeah product...
Speaker: Obviously helped you guys. Super helpful. You had like a full chapter on trash and I was like, okay, all right, okay. And and you you don't, I mean, I heard it from you, but then once we have the set go bold and all that stuff, we're like, okay, what do we, what do we do with that? So if anyone listening or watching hasn't bought that book yet, highly recommend. What's it? Cheap house? Free house houses in Japan, the true story of how I renovate abandoned homes in Japan. And about a year ago when Joey was here, I used to live in this exact house. And about a year ago when Joey came to visit me here, we had a pile of trash. Basically, yeah, right where we're sitting right now. I thought I was going to get tetanus, because there was nails sticking out. I feel like at that time, it was you were disma obviously, you weren't living in it. because yeah but So you were taking it apart to build it the way it is now, right? Yeah. So we had an engineer, an architect. We poured a concrete slab and redid the structure of this house, some of the old posts and pillars. this house is
Speaker: pre-war, so built in 1930s. So we needed to redo and remove a lot of posts and pillars while still saving a lot of the original characters. So at some parts, especially on the second floor, you can kind of see that there's old pieces of wood that we kind of joined together with a Japanese Miyadaiku technique, the technique that they're using in Japanese temples with a where the joints and joinery join together without using a single screw. And that's some really nerdy things that I always try to integrate when building and rebuilding here in Japan.
Speaker: That was something that stuck out to us when we first were starting on this adventure and watching your content was um things like that, you know, the use of Japanese joinery, the way you mentioned the concrete slab, you drop the floor, Japanese homes are elevated like that. And you know I thought that was so unique, but like such a great idea.
Speaker: Making the staircase longer, you know, we we have a staircase in our house right now that's treacherous. Very steep, I can assume. Yeah. I want to rewind the clock a little bit, figure out like how how the heck did you end up in Japan first off? You know, like what was it? Yeah. How did you go from Sweden and where did you grow up in Sweden? I'm curious. Talk to talk us a little bit through that.
Speaker: So I'm born and raised ah in a very Swedish, yeah, like a core family. Two younger sisters, mom and dad. We didn't really have that much money. So we bought an old house, and my dad was renovating it. And me and my sisters, we were building like small forts with the the leftover pieces.
Speaker: I think when I was 11, 12, we had like a four meter tall fort in the garden. Sick. it It was great. I learned how to use and utilize the tools and everything.
Speaker: We have woodworking classes in school. I do a lot of Japanese media about this, about the big differences between Swedish and Japanese DIY and house building culture. And when I do it for a Japanese audience, it's more about Sweden and the rest of the world. so But for an American or a UK, I guess, australian Australians is probably a big part of the the viewers. Konnichiwa.
Speaker: So Japanese.
Speaker: The way Japanese build and maintain houses is just very different. So I get to kind of get to know my own culture by explaining it to a Japanese audience, which is it's very... You kind of zoom out and kind of look at your life and your childhood in a different way.
Speaker: But it's so deeply ingrained in Swedish culture with DIY and just home building and maintenance. But i I came here after i graduated high school. I started working as a model. So I lived in New York for about two years, London for a year, Paris, Milano.
Speaker: like I basically traveled the world as a nomad. I never went to university. But i came in I came to Japan in 2015 for the first time, and it really blew my mind.
Speaker: Everybody who liked Japan when I was in, yeah, when I was very young, it was just the nerds, the people with pink hair and blue hair, people liked anime and the nerds. Taki is one of those. Oh, Japanese. like I grew up on anime and manga.
Speaker: Japan was never on the map for me, but I came here and it really blew my mind and I really never wanted to leave. So I moved back to New York from Japan and just like, okay, New York is good. New York is cool. I have a good time, but I never really see or saw myself living there full time.
Speaker: So I came back to Japan every year for about two months. And then in 2018, I finally made the move. Moved here, realized after living in all these cities that real estate was very affordable.
Speaker: So I purchased a unit like a kilometer away from where we are now in Sangenjaya. It was an old rundown unit, but no one wanted to touch it because it was... 30 years old. This is the tree house? The tree house, yes. Where I have a friend living there now. She's been there for about three years, so she's very happy. She says she's never going to move. okay um And I renovated that one for six months. I purchased it for about 90,000 US dollars, spent 15,000 on renovations.
Speaker: And then the biggest magazines and the biggest celebrities in Japan came to shoot interior in my cheap house. So I thought that was like, oh, that's cool. I'm just doing what everybody's doing, I thought. Were you making renovation videos at that time for that property? No, I didn't. know This was in 2019. Like I had a very small Instagram following from my kind of modeling career, but through my connections in the modeling and the fashion world, it kind of got out anyway. I think my managers at the time were really good at pushing it because no one else was doing it.
Speaker: But to me, it was just like what everyone is doing. All my friends back home, they bought old units and they renovated it and then they started living in it. What inspired you to buy that? Everyone's just so afraid that first property, like what made you pull the trigger?
Speaker: The main reason was that I wanted to be and live in Japan. And I think it was a way for me to get attached to Japan. Yeah. And OK, you buy something.
Speaker: was, how old was I was 26 at the time, 27.
Speaker: And it was a way for me to attach myself to Japan. And with that move made, you kind of have to make it work, if that makes sense. ah My Japanese was far from fluent, but Yeah, either you go to university, you get a Japanese girlfriend, or, I don't know, you buy a house. Our first house in Beppu, my first impression once we finally picked up the keys and saw was that we we had made a big mistake. Did you ever have those? Oh, every day. Every day. I still have them. I still have them. It's like, oh, why did why did I do this? Like, why did I start this project?
Speaker: But like in the end, like something I realized is like if you put in the work, like things move forward and then eventually you're going to reach your goal. Depending on the project, like maybe it takes one month, maybe it takes a year.
Speaker: Or as with my farmhouse, I just had to give up. And that's kind of the biggest like
Speaker: my biggest loss or my biggest mistake, I would say. Like i took on too big of a project. It wasn't really a financial loss, but it was like a psychological loss because I i got hubris and thought I could yeah pull it off. You've had a lot of success with your homes here. Do you think that you're just a very hard worker? Do you think that you have, ah you know, a great vision for the property? Like, what do you think the key to your success has been?
Speaker: i think what I'm good at is spotting potential in undervalued properties. And I'm somehow good at marketing. And i think those two combined with that I'm very picky with parts of design.
Speaker: I think those three things are what gives our properties such a high rating and why people come back. to our properties. Because essentially we we now have a small short-term rental kind of Airbnb brand.
Speaker: And our guests are mainly from California. We have a lot of celebrities staying. go, California. Yes. And people come back and people, it's like the word of mouth, it spreads. And now like we have a very high occupancy and people seem to seem to love it. Which is, I think, is weird because we don't even advertise them yeah i advertise renovation and kind of life in japan on my social media but the byproduct is what should be the main product like the design and the houses i like that what you said pickiness for design and uncompromising you know vision for what you want to achieve here whereas i feel like a lot of time me and tucker are more happy to have something done than then be perfect but i see you go the step further than most people here
Speaker: Yeah, it's it's... Yesterday I spent like 12 hours out in Chiba at the waterfall house like shoveling dirt from the from the river and like my back is so sore. And it's and then the next day you're like on TV or you you shoot a podcast episode or like... So I think that's what makes it so fun in a way because you kind of like allow yourself Like it's it's not a short term gain, if that makes sense. It's like the bigger picture and kind of like how you live your life. Because when I don't have a renovation project, like it I get like really itching. Like, OK, I want to create. I want to do something. and
Speaker: And I realized that that's the fun part. It's like spotting the opportunity. and then execute on it. And then the fact that you have the freedom to be creative into creating what you want and then co-creating with the people around you, like architects, builders, and like build together. I think that's the fun part, really.
Speaker: What are the unfun parts that people don't see? Where do I start? I don't think you can have fun every day, but like, I think All the logistics around it is so time consuming and sometimes like the permits and stuff. Like we're waiting for the permits for the for the septic tank, which is a special one because we're right next to a waterfall, right next to a river, and we cannot like just dump the dirty water in the and the river.
Speaker: So just the bureaucracy yeah is very time consuming. Now, fortunately, like I have a little bit of more budgets in my builds. So now you can hire people to do those things for you. but ah Congratulations. Yes, thank you.
Speaker: But I've constantly been like, okay, you make a little bit of money and then you buy more high quality wood or you make a little bit of more money and then you can get another loan and you can buy a new house or like, yeah. so I see it with this house, you know, this, it this seems like it was a little bit of an elevated budget. Yeah, it is for like just the types of wood. Yeah.
Speaker: And if you don't have any money, you gotta, you gotta spend time finding and sourcing the deals and stuff. So I'm not saying you can pay to get away from your problems. I'm just saying that with a little bit of more budget, you have a little bit of more selection of doing the right choices, making the right choices. Yeah.
Speaker: I'm really impressed by your Japanese skills and I think that really must help in that... bureauerc smooth that bureaucracy a little bit, right? How did you get so good at Japanese?
Speaker: I just obsessed, really. I think it's learning Japanese, making a good piece of content or building a house, it's kind of the same process in a way. You just have a goal, it's just that learning Japanese is such a vague goal, so it's kind of hard to set goals in a way.
Speaker: You can have the JLPTN2 or JLPTN1 as a go, but that doesn't really mean that you're fluent. Because I met many people who have JLPTN1 and they speak like a textbook. Yeah, study for the test. Yeah. We all had those people in school who were, they were really good at the tests, but in in reality they're like, uh-huh.
Speaker: Yep. Learning Japanese is a constant. Like you just got to improve and improve all the time. And depending on who you speak to, like my first three years, like my neighbor here, Shimada-san, I didn't really understand what she was talking about. like Yeah, because the the language they speak is is so different.
Speaker: Like a 20-year-old Japanese person and an Japanese person. it's just yeah it's It's just different. But I was just very obsessive. I'm not too familiar with your earlier YouTube content, but you were making content in Japanese, right? I'd love to hear a little bit more that about that. Were you embarrassed to like make your first video in Japanese? Oh, I was so This was during COVID and the first renovation of this house was done And I was just very bored.
Speaker: Like it was Covid, I had... I was still modeling quite a lot, but during Covid it was like maybe one day a week of work. No castings, no nothing. I was done with this renovation.
Speaker: Right where we were sitting, this was a rental unit because I kind of did house hacking. So it was a separate unit with a separate shower, or a separate kitchen. And I just had a lot of time. I never went to uni and I felt like, oh, maybe started to make videos. So I started making videos.
Speaker: Started with like workout videos just to learn how to make edits. like You have a really good setup. and Thank you. first First debut of the new video cameras. No, this is great. like this is I make and produce a lot of videos, but this is this is impressive.
Speaker: Like I started off with an iPhone. making videos in Japanese. And it was it was half learning how to make videos, half learning how to just put yourself out there.
Speaker: And then a big part of it was also to learn how to speak Japanese. Because I think because I made content in Japanese, you become more aware of how you speak and what words you're using and where where you're lacking knowledge and where you're lacking. Same thing with like filming yourself doing like an athletic activity. You watch the video later and you see your form is off. I could see that being the same thing. You're watching your video and you're like, OK, I sound really bad here. I got to practice or whatever. Yeah. I would really recommend like if you're watching this, if you're trying to learn Japanese, just put out the camera there, speak for a minute, forget about it. And then the next day you're just like looking at it like, oh,
Speaker: especially That's tough, you know. It is tough, but it it takes a week and then you're like, if you make it into a routine and then the next time, like you're going to perfect it. yeah So I started making content and then about a year later, this house, I managed to purchase my neighbor's house. Now we have three houses right next to each other, but I managed to purchase my next door house here and that process of renovating that became a thing on my Japanese YouTube channel, both as shorts and long form content. and
Speaker: we had, a I had like a hundred thousand subs on YouTube in like less than two years. I got the silver placket and it was a big thing for me, but I think I learned what Japanese people wanted to watch. And it was nothing like,
Speaker: what foreigners wants to watch about Japan. It was more about people wanting to see the crazy foreigner renovating older houses in Japan, because no one rent. It's a crazy thing. He's doing something stupid. Yeah, kind of. yeah But it was a good way to keep up with the renovation of the house and also making content as well.
Speaker: But I didn't really like I put all my money into renovation, so I needed to edit everything on my own as well. So it was very tiring. And when that renovation was done, i took a month break just like I've been working like every day for like a year renovating, making content, renovating, making content, occasionally do modeling.
Speaker: And I just like, what if I made content in English instead? Light bulb moment there. Yeah. So I made two short videos. Five days later or two weeks later, i had like 150,000 subs. we I think we saw that.
Speaker: Yeah. Those first videos, right? Yeah, it was insane. It was really crazy. And i was like, okay, I guess I'm making videos in English now. Did you get a lot of like negative feedback in the beginning? Or how is that kind of like feedback loop?
Speaker: um I imagine it's it's tough because Japanese but people want such different content. Yeah, it's it's completely different. It's the same with English viewers. like People think that, wow, Akia is a new thing. like No one's been doing this before. But that's simply not the case. yeah is There are many Japanese-speaking Akia channels. There's Yamori, there's Angura Minzoku, I don't know if you know this one.
Speaker: It sounds like really cool. I'll i'll show you the channel later. I've seen a few other, like, yeah, there are Japanese people doing this, yeah. It's just that they're doing it in such a Japanese way that it doesn't even reach a foreign audience.
Speaker: And I think most of my Japanese speaking... viewers, they don't even know that I'm doing it in English anymore. So when I do like media in Japan and I can see like, I don't know, Yahoo News or like Nikkei or people comment like, oh, I used to watch him years ago when he did YouTube.
Speaker: I'm still doing it, guys. Yeah, I'm still doing it. But it just doesn't resonate in like Japanese people. They don't want to hear about Akiya. They want to hear about Sweden. They want to hear about like foreign things and what makes that special in Japan. And how do foreigners think? I think that's why interview videos are getting so popular because you you hear like a different story from a different person, from someone with a different background.
Speaker: And that it wasn't really hard because I am a foreigner in Japan. It's easier for me to make content for a foreign audience, I think, than it is to make it for a Japanese audience because I'm not Japanese. I live in Japan.
Speaker: I've assimilated very well in Japan. I speak Japanese, but even then it's easier for me to make content for a foreign audience. What's like one unique thing that surprised you about making content for Japanese folks? We are also geared very much towards foreigners, but with us buying this coin laundry, we're we're starting to have to put ourselves in in the Japanese audience shoes. Like what was something that surprised you that worked or maybe didn't work?
Speaker: Everything with social media is about clarity. As long as it's not clear, you lose the viewer in an instant, especially when it comes to short form content. And when when you just look at Japanese advertising, yeah look at Japanese TV, it's like like so colorful and huge and loud. And I think it's even if you understand Japan in Japanese, it's it's kind of weird in a way.
Speaker: But it's also that. It should be so much information in one slide. In two, three seconds of content, it's like a million things that's said.
Speaker: Where else like a foreign YouTube channel, are like it's so minimal. It doesn't need to be a million. Like i have I have this American friend, Michael, he always said like, Well, if it's not set on screen, how would you know what to think?
Speaker: And I'm like, what does he mean by that? And then i was like, OK, so people are kind of told what to think on Japanese screen. It reminds me of like, you see billboards, you know, everywhere in Japan. And there'll be like a little image of the Google search bar with the business name and with the mouse like clicking, like telling you what to do, like, you know. And that's exactly it. It's all the fonts and everything. And I think it's the same when you see Japanese people trying to communicate in English, like the fonts that they're choosing and like the graphic design and everything. It just doesn't resonate. It's cluttered. Yeah. You got to kind of back engineer everything and see and and start elsewhere in a way. I'm not saying I cracked the code completely, but like it's it's a big cultural difference, really. Me and Takei are trying to make more content recently and it's a grind. Like I'm sure there's days where you just don't feel like getting in front of a camera. Like how do you, at any tips or che tricks for self-talk or something?
Speaker: I think it's all about organization. Like if you can posts, seven You can post a video day for a month, but you know that after the first month, you're not going to be able to do it, you're going to burn out, but then don't do it.
Speaker: Then you can produce seven pieces of content and then you post them under over the interval of like two weeks instead. So I think it needs to be sustainable. If you push yourself too hard, like you're not going to be able to do it. Keep some energy in the tank yeah yeah to keep going. plan it. You can make 10 pieces of content. It doesn't mean that you need to post them right away.
Speaker: And the algorithm works the way that if you post constantly with the same interval, people are going to show up and watch that. yeah If you post under a short like interval and then you don't post for a month, like the algorithm is going to kill your channel.
Speaker: We were just listening to podcasts on an autobiography of Haruki Munakami. And he said something similar where he doesn't push himself to the max. He leaves a little bit in the tank so that he's excited the next day to keep going. And I think that seems to be a common theme with a couple people, right? Yeah, how do you continue something over like a decade is what this author was talking about. And and that was exactly his strategy. I've never been 100% burnt out, but I know the feeling of being overworked.
Speaker: I don't know if that's the same thing, or being overworked and burnt. But like working on this house, for example, like Building a house, the amount of small decisions you've got to make. Totally.
Speaker: It's like you order tiles, you order wood, you order trimmings, you've got order floor, you've got to make sure your workers are coming, you've got to order a postbox. Like everything is a small decision. And it's not only, okay, that's ordering material.
Speaker: How are you going to, like, I'm very picky with design. Yeah. How are you going to, like... Where is the wood going start? Like the bathroom here, all the tile lines and everything. Where do you start it? Like there's a million small decisions. And if you leave that to like the randomness,
Speaker: Like there's some things that you can leave to random, but like some, if you're spending this much time and money into creating something, you want it to be kind of planned and yeah engineered in your way.
Speaker: A hundred percent agree with that. There's that decision fatigue. You can only make so many good decisions a day. And then also when you are, i tell Joey this, like when you let a contractor just run wild, he always makes, or she always makes the wrong decision. Like does something different. You like almost have to be there being like, nope, that's not straight. Or hey, I want to, this angle, which is. We were just at Ikea the other day and like by, you know, 75% of the way through Ikea, we had decision fatigue. We're just like, I can't, do we want it or not? Like, yeah. Try going with your girlfriend or your,
Speaker: tough something me and joey have discussed we're we're not tired of buying akia but we don't want to buy the same thing over and over and i think i see that in in your purchases the waterfall house example seems like so different yeah you know like can you talk a little bit about that would you want to do another sanganjaya spot if it was convenient or you know what's what excites you at this point i get excited when i see something undervalued with a lot of opportunities um that I know that you can turn into something incredible. The underdog story. Yeah, that just excites me. I think the creativity of it and like showing people that, oh, no, no, no, you're never going to be able to do this. And then then you actually pull it off. And people from all over the world and Japanese media, they love it.
Speaker: And I think that's something that really gives me a thrill. The underdog. I like that i like that general story as well. Very cool. Yeah, it's fun. It's fun. And like I realized that I just like to be creative and like create cool spaces. And i know that I have a lot to learn. like I have a lot of architects and and and interior designers around me that I learn a lot from too.
Speaker: And in the beginning, people were really helpful and people really wanted to help out with everything because they knew I knew nothing. But no, people don't want to help out so much anymore, which is that kind of like, I feel like I'm kind of... Are they intimidated now? They're like, oh, Anton's got this. care i wouldn Architects can be intimidating intimidated, I believe.
Speaker: never Never tell an architect you're an architect if you're not an architect. Where'd you go to school? My friends are generally very helpful, but like at this point, there's so many things that...
Speaker: need to, like there's there's a lot of responsibility on their side too when it comes to structural stuff. So usually I pay people for that part. And then you get the responsibility back too.
Speaker: And you you know that they're doing a good job as well. Even though our business is small, it's just me and Take, um you know, people see us having reached a certain level of success. And I think that the attitudes were just maybe changed a little bit and maybe towards yourself as well. People see you being successful in what you're doing. And maybe, unfortunately, people are less inclined to help you. but could be could be it but with that said like building a company that's something I'm learning as well and that's really not easy yeah especially in Japan I think it's way easier and in in America in Japan it's difficult yeah so like hiring people I've been a one-man show for forever and this year this year we have a few employees so like taking care of guests and make sure people have a good time and also for content and
Speaker: Yeah, building a company and management is is a different beast. People say I'm too nice, and I don't know if that's it that's a good or bad thing, but I'm learning every day. It's always bad cop, I'm good cop in lot of our business decisions sometimes. Yeah, it has helped being a two-person business because for that exact reason. you know Sometimes if someone makes me an offer or or they want you know something from us, I can just be like, oh, I've got to ask my business partner. you know like I'll get back to you. So it's a nice way to like never make a decision on the spot. That's another thing as well. Like I'm... You probably feel that too.
Speaker: You have what you're doing and you like what you're doing. But there's always, like I would say, 70% my inquiries is not regarding to what I'm doing. It's like people wanting you to do something different than what you're doing.
Speaker: And I think that's something that's hard to navigate in the beginning. It's like, oh, this... famous person or this person with this much money is reaching out and wants to you to do this. Distract you from goals. In a way, yeah.
Speaker: I guess it comes from the like the incredible reach we have on social media. So many people see you and people people are trying you out. They feel you. They want to talk to you. And I think that's something that i think I think I managed pretty well now. But that was the first kind of like hurdle with with doing this on social media. Learning how to say no to people yeah is a skill that I think we all we're all realizing need to learn well. yeah We got advice from, I listened to this talk from this guy named Guy Kawasaki. He's like a big Apple Canva guy, but he was like, partnerships are bullshit. And he just kept emphasizing that because like every day we get someone in our email, you probably feel the same. Like, Hey, you want to partner on this? You want to partner on that? And we just got like, at first we were like, yes, yes, yes. But it just got so, so so's so tiring. But I guess what kind of partnerships do you say yes to?
Speaker: Your Yanmar partnership is sick. We're going to talk about that. Yanmar Sun, yeah. they they We had a big, like, i had 150 people here for a big party. And we put an excavator there, right where the wooden deck is now. yeah And we used an old Hinoki broken bathtub with 500 of these balls that you see at McDonald's. are good What do you call it? The ball pit. The ball pit. And we had a live UFO catching event here. Was that the the block party that you had here? Yeah. OK, yeah. So 150 people here. All my neighbors came here. We had a taco truck here.
Speaker: You have the Yanmar, like, right here? Yeah. Right here. Yeah. Anton's got an excavator, guys. And the operator from Yanmar came here, Hashimoto-san. He was so tired by the end of the day. 35 people and kids like playing UFO catcher. It was a big success. Totally. I've never heard of Yanmar actually until your partnership. And I think now we should get one someday. Yes, you should. So sick, like such a small excavator. Or you should come out to Chiba Waterfall House where we have one. Definitely. So we have one small SV08, which is a 80 centimeter wide excavator. It's like a little really powerful toy.
Speaker: And we excavate a lot of things. And then we also have a crawler, like a carrier, to go up and down the slope. And those two machines, like it's saving us so much work. Can you swim at the waterfall house? Yeah. Oh man. You can. I'm somewhere we can swim. airhouses You got to come by and ah help out building a little bit. Okay. It's it's literally the... I can swing a hammer. I used to build tree houses too when was growing up. Yeah. You're a Canadian. You know how to do this. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah. No, no, that's, it's a great partnership and...
Speaker: They're super good people, easy to work with, and yeah, they just have a good good values, really. And we kind of push each other. very like I give them a lot of reach in this sphere of like recycling and like doing something good for the community. And there are many points that we kind of overlap, and it's really fun to work with a big Japanese company that's also global in a way. so So you get the Japanese vibe, but you also get the global vibe and many, many voices from all over the world in the decision making. And I think that's that's a lot of fun.
Speaker: That's really the next level, Akia renovation, being able to get the excavator and do it yourself, not just like tearing down walls and stuff. It's like getting the machinery. I think that's so cool. We got it. We've got to do that someday. Come out and dig some. You need a license, right? You do, but I have the license and it's on my ground. So if I'm there, you're more than welcome to come and build with me. Excavator certified. Congratulations on passing. I'll probably have my wallet here somewhere. It seems like you're moving more kind of into the luxury space, which I think is the right direction. But I guess what kind of projects excites you? If something came on your desk right now, what be kind of like the, oh, I can't say no to that?
Speaker: First of all, ah I've always thought about this. What is luxury? Yeah. Like I see many brokers online talking about luxury, but to me, that's just expensive properties.
Speaker: So what what is luxury? And to me, luxury is kind of like design timeless spaces that feels good to live in. And to me, that's not a... tower mansion in Toyosu that has terrible lighting, but it's brand new. Lighting in Japan, we've got to talk about that too. We do. Oh my gosh. OK. We do. So if that's what luxury means, like timeless, cool spaces, that's where I want to Great design, maybe, yeah. Great design. I think that's a good point. So I think that's what Aki has been to me all the time, really. It's just that I never had
Speaker: the financial means to like buy something with really good bones. So I needed to do like the real boots on the ground and like really build it up in order to actually create the design that I wanted.
Speaker: So now with a little bit more experience, I think I would like to go on more like bigger projects. And that's what we're kind of like prepping for. I think the waterfall house is a new thing out in the countryside. That's where most of all these millions of vacant houses are.
Speaker: People have been super supportive, the locals, like people around, like they love when you come there and you're trying to do good, you bring new energy to the area. The Japani home in Toritsodagaku with zero renovation, they renovate.
Speaker: 400 units a year. well So it's a big company and that way maybe I can step away a little bit from like the Hong Kong like yeah building building and maybe do it a day or two a week like kind of what we're doing now with the waterfall and then have something bigger that you can put on scale and maybe be more involved in the design and drawing process. Cause that's really what i Oh, scale. Interesting.
Speaker: Very cool. So I've never scaled anything. I've never went to university. Look at Japan. You you have 12 houses. Oh yeah. Well, you've scaled that's at least so yeah that. Yeah. That's definitely scale. Yeah. Maybe, maybe it is.
Speaker: quickly to, uh, Japan lighting in Japan. Um, a little bit of a broader question, but like, you know, we've all seen it, like, i feel like for a lot of people out there, Japan means like really good design. They think minimalist design, like a lot of intention and and everything Muji. But then at the same time, the reality on the ground is I feel like there's so many on not good design spaces in Japan, for example, office buildings or, ah one of the onsen that we go to in Beppu, it's like just such terrible lighting. yeah Do you think Japan has good design, bad design, or do you think it's just like any other country where it's like, it depends if someone puts intent into something that's going to be well designed and if someone doesn't, it's not going to.
Speaker: My little strip here. They're building, they've tore down four buildings and building four brand new buildings. But none of them has windows. What? Yeah, like they have these tiny windows, like facing north. Save energy costs something. Save energy costs, save building Structural, yeah. There are many reasons to it. and And like adding windows, it's, or like not adding windows, it's a cost cutting method, I think.
Speaker: And if you think about the real estate industry in Japan, it's built around for the big actors. It's the real estate agents, it's the banks, and then it's the house builders, because people tear down houses over 30 years, right?
Speaker: and I don't think that the industry of house building is built around the final customer. And I think that's that's a big misconception when it comes to like, oh, Japan has such great design.
Speaker: But for the everyday Mr. Nakamura, it's like they don't get to see that. good design. With that said, like many of these houses are very smart.
Speaker: like They have like, look at the toilets. There are many smart like inventions in Japanese homes that the rest of the world could learn from. But I also think that Japan can learn a lot from abroad in the way houses are built.
Speaker: Because historically, like they built houses without using nails. that's that's That's an insane method. But the way people build now is is just to just to make a profit, really.
Speaker: I was surprised when we tore up our floorboards, like it's just a lot of our homes homes are just on rocks. yeah Like it's just dirt, rocks, and you're like, what? But in Sweden, like I know my my dad bought a vacation house like three hours away from Stockholm.
Speaker: And that's how they built houses 150 years ago in Sweden too. I think insulation and like double pane windows is a fairly new phenomenon. I do feel like Japanese, they appreciate design. Like it's, it's cultural, like Japanese people are proud of their design. Do you think it's like one, as you mentioned, the industry just isn't designed around it's around making money for the banks, the mega builders, et cetera. Um, do,
Speaker: Do you feel like consumers, they they don't have the choice? Like they can't, they don't, they can't, even if they wanted to vote with their wallet, they really, it's like cost prohibitive. First of all, Japan is probably the best country in the world on marketing.
Speaker: Like people abroad, like no one has anything bad to say about Japan. And you you would believe that every house in Tokyo is a beautiful, gorgeous kominka with this slanted roofs or...
Speaker: And that's that's what people think. yeah And then you visit Tokyo and the plots of land are like 30 square meters in some cases. Yeah, and you stay in an APA hotel and you're this is kind of gross.
Speaker: So there are several layers to it. The other one is like the the bubble era. So since Japan hasn't had any inflation since the 90s even. So like many of these older houses, they're like really designed and they spent a lot of money, time and thoughts into building these. But when it when it comes to cost cutting, like especially now when like it's getting more and more expensive,
Speaker: I think it's the same anywhere in the world. yeah If you would need a home in New York or in Toronto, like it's expensive. yeah Yeah, you can't really be like ah buy it based on design. You can buy based on location, convenience, etc. yeah So while there are fantastic American designers, every day the everyday American doesn't live in a designed home. And I think it's very similar in Japan as well.
Speaker: But with that said, the buying point for a designed house here, especially in the countryside, is still very cheap. And I could never buy designed home or a house in Sweden for.
Speaker: A hundred thousand dollars, like it's it's just not. It's not on the map. Some final questions here on this podcast episode. Like if if you were to buy anywhere outside of um the the greater Tokyo metropolitan area, any any places that stand out to you?
Speaker: Budget's not an issue. I think ski areas. Let's go. Yeah. yeah that's That's where it is. And I think Nagano, Yuzawa, Nozawa Onsan. I think Yuzawa is maybe it's gotten a little bit more expensive, but like five, six, seven years ago when I started looking at houses, like,
Speaker: you could get a condo for like one yen 10 yen 100 yen and what a lot of people tried to do maybe some people actually made it they tried to buy as many as they could and then kind of overthrow the management company and then overthrow the co-op i've heard about that kind of stuff yeah so there was a lot of like redevelopment happening in the very cheap spaces but i still believe that japan has one of the best quality of snow in the world. It's not that like, yeah, it's not that like party party after ski vibes, but like just the quality of skiing yeah is so good. We see the data from our website. We see the customers were helping. It just seems like, yeah, Niigata, Nagano. Unfortunately, Niseko is just out of the picture, I think budget wise for folks, but
Speaker: Yeah, I want 80, we have a property in Myoko and like I wanted to get rid of it. Like I personally not too... Myoko Kogan. Yeah, Myoko Kogan. I wasn't like so stoked on the snow, but like i see i see the value in Japan. There's so much excitement there. It is cool, like there's, it's like a lot of young people there too. It's cool communities. Yeah.
Speaker: And I think a lot of people, they go there for seasonal work and there's a lot of things to do there because there's a lot of like energy flowing in a way. The only thing is like if you buy a property, like now I've accumulated and renovated and added value to a lot of properties over the past year.
Speaker: These are my properties, but then I've helped other people as well. And management seemed to be the hardest and biggest hurdle for many people. Yeah, we have like six properties that all just has problems and we're like, okay, which one do we prioritize to fix first? and So ah let's say you spend the time, you spend the money into making it nice, but you live I don't know, 10 kilometers away, 100 kilometers away, 1,000 kilometers away.
Speaker: How do you manage it and make sure that it's up to date, up to standard? And I think that's that's a big hurdle and a big issue a lot of people don't think about. Because Japanese management companies don't really work in the same way as abroad. And it's all about trust.
Speaker: And you can't overpay for them to do it. It's about It's so many things that's kind of like lined up. So we have a Japanese property manager and a foreigner property manager. And it seems like whenever would tell our Japanese property manager, like, Hey, can you do this? They do it perfectly, yeah you know, but they don't see the plant that's dying in the corner or something like that while our Foreign property manager kind of just goes above and beyond. Yeah, she sees stuff that we don't notice and will you know proactively go out and try to you know fix problems before they arise. yeah And the Japanese property manager is more like, we have to tell her to do it.
Speaker: We have to tell them, yeah. Which is not on her. like it's It's us. We need to do a better job of also being explicit. But um yeah, interesting. I actually just realized that. But Anton, flip side to that question. So let's say you got rid of all your you sold all your properties in Tokyo.
Speaker: Where in Tokyo would you rebuy? right where we're sitting right now. Okay. I'm very happy here. I'm very content here. Sanginja. Sanginja, Setagaya. We have, I have seven properties here.
Speaker: How many you have on the street? Like four? You own the street. I have three properties. Rename the street. Anton Street. Anton Dori. So this this is exactly where where I would like to be, I think. I'm in a very good position, I think, right now. And I i wouldn't want to live I wouldn't want to leave here, but with that said, I know this area very well.
Speaker: I know my neighbors very well. I know the people running businesses here. I'm very integrated in the community here, I would say. And in order to start over in a different part of town, it's it's a lot of work. yeah And I think that's also for for you or your viewers as well. Like Japan is so big. It's such a big... Totally. And people are like, I want to buy something in Japan. Yeah.
Speaker: Where do you start? If you could change anything about Japan, you just had a magic wand, whether it be the friction of bureaucracy or just any weird thing, like what would you change? The policy around creating families.
Speaker: Okay. Okay. and having kids. Because that's like, if you just zoom out, like the biggest problem Japan has right now is a declining population. And it feels like they're doing everything they can to not look at that specific problem. Don't they i incentivize? Like you get, if you have a kid, there's some financial kind of you get. It's not big enough. problem I don't think it's big enough. Like if, if they would just like, okay, for the next three years, we're going to allocate, i don't know, 10% of the entire GDP on like,
Speaker: We're gonna get more kids. yeah Do you have any like specific ideas on solutions? Like, Dega's already free. like Just do what we do in Sweden. Everything is for free. Like there's entire healthcare care is free. yeah Education is free.
Speaker: I agree. It's the financial worry that I think yeah in America too, you know, it's like $50,000 a year maybe for an infant. So if you have like that safety net and you know that like, okay, you create a family,
Speaker: You have kids and you know that that kid is going to have like a safety net and a good life in the future. Like I think a lot of Japanese families are going to rethink that decision and actually maybe have an extra kid or two kids. Because right now, like what, a minus a million people a year. I read some article, I can't remember where it was from, but some projection that the Japanese government had done in terms of like the declining, ah the rate of the decline yeah of population and also, um ah you know, with with the elderly dying and people having less babies. I think they were we're five years ahead of the prediction, like we're where they predicted 2030 to be 2025. they're saying, well, the the rate is in, it's going faster.
Speaker: on this street here. I've been here for five and a half years and three of my neighbors have passed away. So it's it's not ah about like not people not having kids, but people are just very old.
Speaker: And they like, there are no people to take care of them either. Caretakers of these people here, they're all foreigners. ah really There are no young Japanese people doing these kinds of jobs.
Speaker: Not that I've seen here. yeah If you go to the convenience stores, they're not Japanese anymore. yeah They're Vietnamese, they're Nepalese, they're Chinese. They're Korean. Yeah. Like, and Japan needs young workers.
Speaker: But I think the biggest problem for Japan right now is because they don't get any kids. If they just fix their family making issues and like actually give birth to more people, I think ah think that will fix a lot of problems. But it it feels like by reading and consuming Japanese news, that's the only thing they don't talk about.
Speaker: We went to university here for i enjoy four four years at ICU, but like all our friends, they're mid thirties. None of them have kids at this point. They're all single. Only one's married. the Only one's married. And it's like, what?
Speaker: I don't know. It might be a... I think it's maybe... ah Part of it's a Tokyo thing. Tokyo is just has so much going on, but it's an interesting stat. Like 5% of my friends 35 and above here have kids. Yeah. How old were your parents when they had you?
Speaker: My parents are pretty old. So my mom was actually like four in her 40s, but um yeah, I think it might have been a mistake, but... Oh, a good mistake. yeah Last question on the podcast. Um, any advice for, um, people looking up to Anton and maybe want to get started on an adventure in Japan, whatever that might be buying an Akia, buying real estate in Japan. Do you have any advice for, for listeners of this podcast?
Speaker: I think just trying to immerse yourself in Japanese culture, whether that is through anime, whether that's through like learning Japanese, just be here, try to learn as much as you can.
Speaker: And don't try to come with your own country's kind of mindset and push that onto Japanese society. I think it doesn't matter if you're a CEO of a big company or if you're a sensei at a big university, like, this is Japan, this is the Japanese people's country.
Speaker: Try to learn as much as you can from the Japanese people and try to consume as much of the culture and language before you can make like informed decisions, really. Anton, thanks for being here. This place is so special. You know, just sitting sitting here at this table, you've done such an incredible job. So hats off to you. i to get the was i must Everybody check out Anton's book, Free Houses in Japan. Check out his masterclass as well. I believe it's called the Akia Masterclass. Akia Masterclass. And also japanihouses.com. We'll put all those links in the show notes too. was emmo so Welcome back anytime.
Speaker: Thank you. Thank you.
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. 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. Thanks again for listening and we'll see you next week.
