Transcript
Speaker: Stories get weirder and weirder every time he disappears. Like he's currently MIA right now. Actually, we haven't had any communication with him. Neither has Fumi for about a month now.
Speaker: Welcome, welcome back to the Buying a House in Japan podcast. We are recording live today from Tama Base Camp. How you doing, Joey? Welcome, everybody. I'm doing good. I'm doing good.
Speaker: We've been in Japan for how long at this point? This is day four. start with a quick trip recap. Trip recap. We landed Wednesday night. What did we do? We got a chicken ramen was our first stop.
Speaker: Neap body. There's a really fire chicken ramen spot. i don't know what it's called, but. Take a look if you land a neapote off the Keisei Skyliner. Really good. It's interesting flavor. It reminds me of chicken noodle soup. It's like a familiar flavor, I would say, for someone that didn't grow up in Japan.
Speaker: Okay, that was day one, Wednesday. and a Half day, not even a real day. Let's consider that day zero. Day one, we hit the ground running. We got to TBC, Tokyo Suburban Midterm Stay.
Speaker: And immediately we went to that first day we woke up early, jet lag. We went to the hardware store, was our first stop. We bought a bunch of more plants, some nice concrete, little block things, put plants on. just we assess We quickly assessed the house situation and started filling it with, we realized we needed a little bit more details on the walls and stuff like that to make the house look a little bit more homey. So that was our first mission.
Speaker: Let's get in there. So we've had a friend stay. He's been working on the garden. We got this like giant rock placed right on top of our garage, which is slightly whirring. There's some big cracks, I think, in the concrete. But the house is this looking good. It's a really good feeling. We have some friends in the area that we're hiring to help build furniture and get progress done.
Speaker: House is looking great. Yeah. Big shout out to our friends, Josh and Linda for helping us while we're away. I don't think the rock caused the cracks, just to be clear here. but It's just we're a little worried.
Speaker: ah We wanted a high impact rock. or Boulder and that we had someone come and crane it in expensive like 700 bucks but we now know understand rock delivery if you're looking for a landscaper we can also introduce you to Josh he's been awesome thus far yeah really great and he also helped us with Amazon deliveries and putting together IKEA furniture that kind of thing so big shout out Josh that was a really big help having that head done because I know We both know how bad the downboarded cardboard can get when you're getting a ton of packages delivered. So thanks again.
Speaker: Yep. So the houses, I'd say 90% there. As Joey mentioned, just a couple personal touches. It is cold as balls here, though. Luckily, we have five split unit heaters running all the time. and But we are looking at installation quotes that came back at close to $20,000, believe.
Speaker: to do redo all double pane all the windows and maybe you do the floor installation yeah quite expensive it's not comparatively the u.s though it's a big job we have i don't know like 30 windows i feel like my windows are expensive i know from my mo my dad listening i know we bought some windows for the cottage or whatever so stuff it adds up shout out we go to uh happy harry's in nova scotia it's i don't know when cheap cheaper and windows and stuff they sell but yeah windows can be expensive and Anyways, fast forward, we recorded a podcast with Shu Matsuo. Many of you guys know him from YouTube. and This was the next day. Yeah, wakeke woke up early in the next day.
Speaker: Next day. And we also were joined by Brett, his business partner. They're making a website called Akiahub. I think we'll release that podcast maybe next week or the week following. So really interesting chat. Be sure to keep an eye out for that.
Speaker: We recorded a couple of videos with him. So we will be making an appearance, our debut and paris ah appearance on Shu's channel soon too. Shout out to Shu and Brett. Check out their website, akiahub.com.
Speaker: After that, it's just been meetings back to back. it's No rest. Day three. But Joey I have talked about it. It's a defensive mechanism by being in Tama. We're close enough to Tokyo, but also far enough where people don't maybe want to come visit us all the time.
Speaker: And I think us, we' we've been building this business. We've both been in North America. I really actually do making these sprint trips. We come here, we pack it 9am to 9pm, if not sometimes more with work, but it feels like we're really getting shit done.
Speaker: A lot does get done. i don't love the sprint trip. I would like it. So we do these two-week sprint trips. I would like it to be three weeks, pace it out a little bit more. But at the end of these sprint trips, every single time, a lot does get done.
Speaker: Yeah, we build up like a ton of action items. We've talked to ton of people on Google Meets and it's like great to see people in person. And just, I feel like a lot of things... just break through and we make a lot of progress. After Shu, we met with some people from business that is helping us incorporate here in Japan. So had some more back-to-back meetings, as Take said.
Speaker: The next day, no rest, hit the ground running. Downtown Tokyo, took the train in. We ran Akiya Mart direct summit. yeah We gathered all the real estate agents that we're working with and just had, it was like a five-hour meeting to align on certain things, streamline the process, standardize things.
Speaker: Yeah, if this is your first time listening, Akiyamart Direct is our purchasing program. We really haven't been too vocal about it because we've been figuring out the nuts and bolts After yesterday, feel very confident. We have our shit together. We have a really good streamlined process. We're building in technology. We're building in we've We're helping close to 60 customers at this point. And we're starting to see where people have questions, where the pitfalls are, where the friction is. So really excited. I think we will do more of an official launch soon. But we got all our agents in a room.
Speaker: We were just like, what are the problems? Why can't we do it this way? Why can't we do this way? And I think we've made sizable progress. I think they all the agents the in the room as well were very impressed with the effort that we put in. And not only impressed with effort that we put in the standardized stuff, but the progress we made at actually standardizing and deciding on these things. So I think a lot, very productive meeting.
Speaker: We specifically printed out like tons of sheets of paper. We had done a couple corporate meetings in Japan. We noticed like everyone loves having printouts of slides. So we were like, color printouts. Let's do it. yeah. They use the good ink. Thank you to our agents who are maybe listening. You've probably heard on their interviews on the podcast. We have some more stuff coming, but we're really excited. 2025 going to be the year. We're aiming to maybe do 250 transactions this year.
Speaker: Fingers crossed. I think we can do it. Next day. today? Is today. and that And we're here now. And we've got tomorrow, we're in we're still in Tokyo, running a few more errands. And then after that, Tuesday, so day six, we are waking up early and making our trip to Beppu. Yep.
Speaker: Quick highlight, we actually closed on our Nagasaki property two days ago, too. So congratulations, Joey. Bye. 5th Akia in the books. Cinco de Akia.
Speaker: Nagasaki Champon. don't know if you've ever had Nagasaki Champon, Joey, yet, but we're going to go get some. No, I've never been to Nagasaki either. Okay. So yeah, we're headed down, but that's not the point of today's episode. We are going to do some fun predictions.
Speaker: Joey came up with a really good idea. We've been talking and Many of you guys have been following along with our journey on GSoGelux, which we call now Beppu Hot Springs Rental. We are in a constant limbo. Is our property done yet?
Speaker: And we want to make some predictions now. We're going to do a post-mortem as well to be like, let's see how things actually turned out. Quick plug, we did post a new YouTube video today. So I don't know when we're gonna post this, but new YouTube video on our before and almost after.
Speaker: But the big question is Sato-san. Joe, you want to give us a little context on who Sato-san is? What's the deal with him? Everybody, people always find the Sato-san stories funny. So we wanted to dive into that a little bit more.
Speaker: Just a heads up, Sato-san is not his real name. We've been using a fake name alias for this contractor as well. So don't we're not trying to dot What's the word? Dossim or whatever. Dossim. Dossim, yeah. But Sato-san is our contractor in Beppu.
Speaker: And for our listeners of the podcast, we've had some several kind of quirky, wild issues with this contractor. And i think overwhelmingly, one of the main issues is we just never know when we're going to finish this property. But rewinding the clock a little bit, we started this renovation project November 2023. And and and we're in February now, 2025. So, you know, it's been over a year.
Speaker: And Sato-san, we went with Sato-san, so... Again, we discuss this on the webinars and the consults we do when we talk about our experience using contractors. But we went with Sato-san because he was down to do a bunch of custom stuff. ye We wanted horikotatsu in the living room. like ah We got this big three meter long table. We wanted to build ah ah make that like a sunken table where you sit on the tatami mat floor and your feet go down below the floor level and we wanted to do some custom stuff in the shower room, et cetera. And the other contractors that we interviewed, none of them wanted to do this custom stuff. they There's like a prefabricated solutions for kitchens and bathrooms in Japan.
Speaker: And most contractors, it seems, want to use those prefabricated solutions. Not Sato-san. He seemed like he was down for anything. Seemed like a really nice guy. Seemed very honest. We had actually gotten in him as a referral. So I think we put a lot of trust in. And thankfully, we're working with Fumi. And Fumi was actually the one who introduced us. So she's been the go-between. And honestly, she's been chasing Sato for the past year and a half. So bless her heart. Thank you, Fumi.
Speaker: But yeah, again, it started out very optimistic. Sato was like, I'll get this job in two months. Two months, no problem. Like me Joy, oh, okay. And great gave us a really good low ball kind of price.
Speaker: Take a listen to our podcast with Kuhn Klinkers. He's one of the architects that we walked through the situation. like, you guys got played. ah Yeah. So I don't know if we got played. I don't think we got played, but he was like, ah, this sounds pretty typical. Familiar.
Speaker: Yeah. So ah we want to do some predictions here. We want it. So we're about to go down to Beppu. This is maybe our fourth, since we started working with Sato-san, this is maybe our fourth kind of in-person check-in on the progress of the house, three or four.
Speaker: And so we want to make some predictions of what we we can expect. But right before you make those predictions, I just want to re-highlight some of the funny, recap some of the funny stories, quirks that have happened over this past year and a half with Sato-san.
Speaker: So first thing was around that first Christmas, he texted us saying that he either broke his femur or got a piece of metal impaled in his leg. He fell off a ladder. And i was like, did this happen at our house? I was concerned it happened on our property. He said, no, it happened at his mother's house kind of thing. But he was going to be out of, he couldn't work on the house for maybe two or three months with this broken leg kind of thing. So that was the first Like yellow, red flag. I'm not sure what color. He sent us a photo of his leg really wrapped up. And we're like, that's definitely not a hospital. It looked like we want to give him benefit of the doubt. This was his true strike one.
Speaker: yeah Yeah. Like he sent us a picture as proof, but like the picture was taken in a way. It was like hard to really see what was going on. and almost like a little childish. I don't know. Anyways, that was the first kind of red flag there. We're like, all right, fine. We're still, it's not going to be two months, but we still really like Sato-san.
Speaker: Second thing, his communication has always been pretty poor as well. It's hard to get him to respond to texts. It's hard for Fumi to get him to respond to stuff. The next thing that happened was maybe that spring or summer,
Speaker: He told us but he disappeared. MIA for a few months again. After the broken leg thing, he came back and was working for a little bit, but then disappears again, comes back after a few months and tells us that he was in jail.
Speaker: He got arrested. Something involving his ex-wife that we don't really fully understand the situation there. But he was like, um they took my phone and everything so I couldn't communicate with you.
Speaker: i was in jail. And he's... but you can't pay my bank account anymore. You need to pay me in cash. Like they're going to take ah everything you send to the bank account. You need to pay me in cash. we're like, all right, Sato-san just got out of jail, needs cash.
Speaker: Got it. That was super funny. I think we were hanging out one time and your brother texts to you like, hey, heard Sato-san just got out of jail and owes you cash from the podcast. But it's during this entire time, we've been like, Fumi, hey, can you get us updates? And she's going to the house. She's taking photos. She's probably much angrier than we are. And again, she's been chasing him. Sato's not answering my calls. he's His phone is off.
Speaker: Excuse after excuse. So again, thankfully for Fumi, she's been the one chasing here. We've been, I think, the good cops. We've been having her be the bad cops. So yeah. Last time we saw Sato-san, we had just come back from a bakery and we had some like sweet bread. There's a new bakery opened up near our house in Beppu. So we were going there quite often.
Speaker: Penguin Bakery. Bomb. Penguin Bakery. And we go back and I forget what it is, but we've got the, we've got our hands full of pastries from the bakery store and Fumi was with us. And for some reason, Sato-san mentioned, haven't eaten for three days. And like, Joey, you're just like, here's a cheesecake. And he just took it. He was like, thank you so much.
Speaker: He hadn't eaten for three days. We're like, what? Like the story. Hard to believe. It's hard to believe. Stories get weirder and weirder every time he disappears. Like he's currently MIA right now. Actually, we haven't had any communication with him. Neither has Fumi for about a month now.
Speaker: Yeah, we've been a good cop. In that same situation, he's, hey, I have nowhere to stay. And we're like, hey, you can stay here. And he was like very grateful. really i think he was like tearing up a little bit too. So we've been trying to... We really have tried to be really nice and and generous with him. He has taken a lot of time. We're giving him the benefit of doubt.
Speaker: But yeah, something... He's maybe a compulsive liar. That's my kind of honest read of the situation is I don't believe like he didn't have a limp or anything after getting a metal impaled in his femur a few months later. So yeah, I'm not sure i believe that story.
Speaker: I don't think he was actually in jail. I do think there's something going on with his ex-wife, but I don't know exactly what that is. um I do believe... that he thinks he can't have money deposited into his account. I don't know if he what that situation is there, but I think that he's a disorganized businessman and needed to take on other work to survive and pay rent and buy food and that kind of stuff.
Speaker: And that's why he's been disappearing. He has to work on these other projects. So our project slows down and he just like stacking more. He can't admit that to us. And so he comes up with these crazier and crazier stories. So our initial quote, think I think, don't know what the initial quote is, but basically we've scoped about $40,000 for this project. We paid him, think, close to 20K to start out. We paid him another ten k this the second time in cash.
Speaker: And so we still owe him another $10,000. Quality work. quality of work Good and bad. I think we we did the podcast. There's some things here that were quite sloppy. There are things that he did. Horikotatsu is great.
Speaker: Horikotatsu is great. So when we saw him last time, we're like, hey, Sato-san, let's finish this. This is our final request. We just want some things cleaned up here. Pretty small stuff.
Speaker: the biggest thing? Insulation in the roof. Insulation in the roof. We believe he's done it. Let's see. The shower was a little bit of a concrete mess. yeah he could have been awesome, but he actually put a coat on at the very end to make it look old gummy.
Speaker: So we decided, to hey, let's put just cedar planks. And we saw a photo. looks quite good. Don't know if it's functional. To this date, we have never used the shower. la Is it going to be ready, Joey?
Speaker: Yeah, okay. Prediction. Prediction market. JLux predictions. right, Joey. Let's go. Let's go. I predict the house is not going to be ready. i think oh I think the shower, I think this is what, so some of the things that we asked them to do, some paint smudges, like wallpaper bubbling in places. There were are some areas where tatami meets the hardwood floor that was a rough and sharp change there, like you could cut your foot or something. So we asked small things like this, we asked them to fix. I believe the small things are fixed and I believe the roof is insulated.
Speaker: I don't think the shower's done. Okay. I agree with you. When we went last time, was pretty livable. I think it's good enough at this point. If he's not fully done, maybe we have someone else come through.
Speaker: Finish the job, man. We just got it cleaned. So it it's definitely livable. it Do you think we're going to see Sato-san on this trip to Beppu?
Speaker: Yes. We owe him $10,000. where If Fumi texts him saying, hey, Take and Joe are going to be back in town, he's going to think they've got the cash to pay me the rest of the money, and he shows up. That's what you're predicting?
Speaker: a Yeah, he knows we owe. Joey's asked me, do you think Satosan just forgot? Do you think he's forgot about the money that we owe him? He's very disorganized. i So I was like, do you think he thinks that in things that he's fully paid up and now just can't be bothered to do the final 2% that's left on the house? That's what i was thinking. $10,000. $10,000 is a lot of We are starting to prep to get it in cash if need be.
Speaker: Again, we're never going to pay this guy until he's done. yeah Yeah. I refuse until it's, hey man, you this is what you said you'd do. We have it in writing. Yeah, maybe.
Speaker: i think what we're talking about is paying him half of that 10K. Potentially, we can figure that out. The other thing I thought is, okay, he probably doesn't. He's probably organized enough to know that we owe him more money still.
Speaker: But... Do you think that he's the is not worth finishing the job for whatever reason? He knows how much we owe him. It sounds like he's constrained on money, obviously.
Speaker: There's definitely a shame factor, I believe. He's definitely, he's always been like, I'm very sorry. going to make a special isogi or special speed and get this done fast. So yeah I don't know. Maybe we got to do an interview with Fumi, actually.
Speaker: Let's do it. Let's do that with her and be like, Fumi, get her opinion. Like, it is important, I think, to understand psychologically how maybe some these Japanese contractors think. And don't know if Fumi's going to know that. But for context, Satosan has never left the country, actually. He's never been on a plane ever.
Speaker: He's great, really appears to be a very nice guy. He, I don't know, if you were to meet him on the street, you'd be like, wow, really nice Japanese guy. But to go back and answer your question, this place is not going to be done.
Speaker: I think we're just going to have to make the best of and start. We've been pausing our Airbnb process for the past year. but We have earned $0 this property. Good thing is that we haven't been paying a mortgage because we bought it in cash.
Speaker: This was our first pilot project. So really thankful. Wouldn't have done it any differently, actually. I think it's hopefully you as a listener are learning from our maybe mistakes, but overall, the place is pretty good.
Speaker: I think we can make it nice. it it It was looking pretty good the last time we were there. Do you think we're going to be able to like, every time we've left Bepu so far, we clean up the furniture, we pack it all away. Do you think we're finally ready to leave some of the furniture in place?
Speaker: Yes. I think we're only going to be there for a couple of days, but i think we just have to. I think we have to as well. At this point, it's been too long. Tokyo Spot's pretty much done because it was at a blank slate and it's been ready. I think we should just almost start ordering Amazon packages there.
Speaker: Might be a good idea. To get some stuff. I sent something from Nitori there a long time ago, like right after we left the last, time like the third like lamp thing. No idea the situation with that, but we'll find out.
Speaker: Yeah, we need to take pro photos. So that's coming next. I do believe we'll be coming back maybe in April, May timeframe. That's when we really have to put the ribbon on, tie the ribbon on the bow.
Speaker: What's the word for that? Tie a bow on it. Tie a bow on it. There we go. Tie bow on it. But. Yeah, I think we need to, yeah, I think we got to start putting the furniture in and not tidying it up because it is a real bed poop, but it is a pain to assemble the beds and then deassemble the beds. Yeah.
Speaker: So we got it professionally cleaned again. So this should be it. I think what the cedar, do we need to stain it or like finish polyurethane it or something?
Speaker: I don't know. If you go to a Japanese onsen and they have a seat, like a wooden bath, that's unfinished, but it does tarnish or it gets that black patina on it. Don't think it's mold.
Speaker: Who really knows? But it does tarnish. Yeah. Okay. Rise and fall maybe of Sato-san. It's been a journey. We need to cut this tie. I think we just need a Yeah. Are we willing to pay 10K to be done with it or no?
Speaker: Just pay him 5K. Let's call it a day, bro. Yeah, on the one hand, I want him to just finish it. But on the other hand, it's do we just end the saga of Sato-san?
Speaker: We could just try to find a finished carpenter, fresh blood, and just be like, I think if we bring some fresh blood in, contractors will always start off very strong. I think that's a very common thing. People are like, okay, very impressed at how quickly they tore down and started making progress. But I think they just lose steam. And this has been like a book he's been trying to finish for the past year and a half and just can't get through.
Speaker: So same thing with writing code or anything like that. The first 80% is fun. And then the final 20%, like really getting it ready for production is the most tedious part. Anyways, we do have a YouTube video on it just released. Check out our YouTube channel, Akia Mart.
Speaker: but We are going to take some more footage. We've shifted our gear. where We haven't been focusing on making too much content. I think we're just going to keep leaning into these podcasts. We've been trying to do Instagram. We've been trying to do XYZ.
Speaker: We do are now going to just hire some people to take videos. I think it's been quite challenging when we're doing so many things to be like, okay, let's take some videos and remember to document. Yeah. Another way, we've been doing more voiceovers in our YouTube videos. yep So that is something we can do while we're not in Japan as well. So maybe someone filming yeah Nagasaki House, for example, and then we voiceover.
Speaker: and Food for thought. But the Sato-san saga, to be continued. We will do another podcast, yeah maybe from Beppu on our last day, and we'll let you guys know. To be continued.
Speaker: Joey, again, sorry, just to be clear, not finished is both of our predictions. na I'm saying shower, not finished. Everything else. Small touches, finished. Okay.
Speaker: Will we see Satosan? Yes, no. I'm predicting no. You're predicting yes. so we I think he will come. I think he will come. Let's see if we get Satosan on a podcast. zero Zero percent chance, actually. na Let's get Fumi on a podcast, though.
Speaker: But okay, guys, thank you for listening. I know we've been a broken record. We've talked about this over and over again, but the Jisogi Lux, what is now Betbu Hot Spring Rental is almost done.
Speaker: Next adventure is going to be Nagasaki Crypto House. So we are going to Betbu and then Nagasaki right after. We know we've got a lot of good feedback, negative feedback on Bitcoin.
Speaker: It seems like there's been a huge...
Speaker: aversion. Japanese locals do not want to do transactions or want to touch crypto. I don't know where the fear stems from. Maybe it's just new technology that is scary.
Speaker: but Yeah, I sold crypto last year, two years ago, and did my taxes, and it was really no different from selling stocks. But the aversion here in Japan, we're talking, so for a real estate transaction, you need a type of paralegal called a judicial scrivener here in Japan.
Speaker: They were trying to do this entire transaction from the buyer's perspective in Bitcoin. So let's just say we sell the house for 0.2 Bitcoin. We want the buyer to just pay the 0.2 Bitcoin and not deal in fiat or yen at all.
Speaker: But the judicial scriver needs to get paid and the agent needs to get paid commission as well. So we've been trying to work on our judicial scrivener that we partner with and our agent to accept Bitcoin. I think that the agent might accept Bitcoin commission.
Speaker: Judicial scriver was scrivener was a no ultimately. But we did find out that us, the seller in this scenario, can pay money. for the judicial scrivener's fees on behalf of the buyer. So potentially we just collect the Bitcoin ourselves, sell it ourselves, and then um pay the judicial scrivener that way. And we could also do the same for the agent. and Joey and I, we've we've been going on a lot of walks. We've been talking about it. We really have earned very little, zero dollars from all our properties. But with this all, I think we are trailblazing it We will be the first Bitcoin transaction, to my knowledge, in Japan.
Speaker: We're probably not going to make money on it. But if and when things change, we will be the pioneers, I believe. It's fun to do. I feel like we need... I don't know about you, Taki, but I feel like I'm not like doing it to be the first one to do a Bitcoin transaction real estate. It's just like fun to like challenge something. It's challenging. Yeah. like weve We both worked in crypto before, so like why not try this?
Speaker: Yep. So again, we've been saying this over and over, but Good job, Joey. It's been about a year and a half on this journey. like Things are blowing up. and We appreciate everyone who's an Akiya Mart subscriber. If you are looking to purchase house, I feel strongly we can help you. We have some really good people on our team.
Speaker: So please reach out to us. A ah contact at akia-mart.com. We're talking a lot of people. Also, we've onboarded someone on our team, Eric. So Eric has been doing podcasts. You may have heard him before.
Speaker: So if you do want to book a consult, consulte it's probably going to go to Eric as me and Joey are going to be out for this month, heads down, trying to figure some stuff out. Any final words, Joey?
Speaker: I'm excited for the ferry. Actually, for people that have never traveled on a ferry in Japan, they're great. They got restaurants, onsen on them. We're going to take one from Osaka to Beppu in a few days. I'm looking forward to that.
Speaker: All right, so we'll go out with your favorite outro here, Joey, because we got the Rodecaster.
