Transcript
Speaker: I'm just quietly walking through this pitch black house with my flashlight on, like a hammer, and it's terrifying. it's It's like something out of a silent hill.
Speaker: Welcome to the Buying a House in Japan podcast. My name is Take. Unfortunately not joined by my co -host Joey today. He's working on Tama Basecamp before the photos get taken, but I will hold down the fort because we have a very interesting guest today. Today we have Justin Wong. Justin is one of our earlier Akiyomart direct customers and success stories. So Justin, thank you for so much for being here. How are you doing today? I'm doing great. Thank you for having me.
Speaker: Awesome, Justin, we're stoked. I talked to Yoshi last week and you, when did you just came back from Japan, right? Yeah, I came back to Japan a couple of weeks ago. I went down to check out the house and and try working Japanese hours. So it was a nice little trip. Okay. We'll talk about the Japanese, both of those actually topics in a little bit. but just Justin, before we go into it, do you mind giving a quick intro? Who are you? Where do you live? And yeah, any, anything about your background? Yeah. I live in Vancouver. I've always.
Speaker: loved going to Japan. I've been to Japan, uh, quite a few times growing up and the housing market in Vancouver and most of America these days out in Canada are, it's rough, right? And okay even though I have a pretty good job, it I'll never be able to own a house. So I was looking on Reddit one day. Right. And reddit interesting yeah, shockingly it was where it started and people okay were like,
Speaker: Hey, how do you get a house in Japan? now oh that be There's no way. There's no way. It can't be that easy. And one, there was one comment that mentioned the Kia Mart and the Intuos. Yeah. So word of mouth really does work. And I saw that and it went from there, but.
Speaker: ah Yeah, I'm a business professional. I work in marketing, work fully remote, so they get things lined up. We just heard about the the the digital nomad visa in March and I was so i was like, oh okay, this could be a thing, right? I've always wanted to spend more time in Japan. Everything lined up and yeah, finding a Kia Mart at this time and having you guys be starting out this business, it was a perfect opportunity for us.
Speaker: Oh yeah. And I'm curious. I feel I'm sitting in California right now feel exactly the same about buying a house. Who cares? What is like the median home price in your area or what's like the average house, a house, a couple of million.
Speaker: A couple million? Oh shit, okay. yeah for We were maybe jumping ahead a little bit, but yeah for getting a house of the same size as the one I got in Japan is $7 .6 million. dollars it's it's yeah yeah gla so Just square footage or square meters? Just by square footage. And I don't get to live in Japan, so it's not even worth it. But that's once we looked at the numbers, it was a no -brainer.
Speaker: I think, yeah, I see when we talked to you first initially, we, Joey and I both saw a lot, like, I feel like we're all part of the same generation. I know how old are you? 35. Okay. Right. And so I'm 34. And it seems like this is the, we're in the same, a lot of our generation right now is feeling the same problem where we can't afford homes here. And Japan's an interesting option, right? Yeah. Yeah. How many times have you been to Japan before? You're like, let's do this.
Speaker: I think I have been seven times. This would be yeah seven times or so. How much Japanese do you know? Very little up until maybe like. Once I think that the papers were signed, I was like, okay, we got to we got to do this seriously because I've always tried. and I've always bounced off. It's really hard, right? I don't know any other languages and trying to learn Japanese as your first language is rough, right? It's rough. It's so hard, but now i'm I've been trying really hard, but up until this point, no, I didn't like, I can, I recognize Hiragana, Karakana, that's it.
Speaker: Okay. I'm right there with you, man. I went to, I'm half Japanese and I went to Japanese school as a kid. And I'm just like, definitely can't speak it fluently. Definitely lose it. Like Japanese is so hard, especially when you're living in North America, speaking English every day. i've I've heard that a lot. I've had a lot of friends who are like, Oh yeah, I used to be fluent in Japanese for whatever reason. And I haven't used it in five years and it's completely gone. I'm like, how do you just lose a language for if you just don't use it for a couple of years? That's crazy. That's scary. It's tough. kind These hard characters reading. i Yeah, no, for real.
Speaker: And, but all right, Justin, I'm pumped from the day one. I think you started, you chatted with us first in August. Let me quickly check something around, around that. Okay. Yeah. we So you're one of our first customers. We really brought through the process. Actually you're number two for Yoshi. So right on, I see that we oh nice chatted with you on August 1st. So August 1st, and we got, when did you get your keys? I think oh in October, right?
Speaker: Yeah, I got my keys in October. I met Yoshi on like the fourth day I got to Japan. So like first week, like October 10th or something. Okay, right on. So pretty quick turnaround. I think talking to Yoshi and just looking at the people we're helping, you're definitely one of the most straightforward ah customers we've helped. I think from day one, you're like, I want this. And you just went for it and sent it. And I think that is just like,
Speaker: Awesome. It was awesome working with you, but do you mind talking a little bit about what's the place you ended up but getting? How much is it? Where is it? And I know it has a dope ass Gen Con though, but oh, ima okay it is this, it's a 2 ,200 square foot place in Nara around in the Nara region, two floors, eight bedrooms, two bathrooms, or yeah bedrooms and eight bedrooms for myself and my wife. so We each get a floor is going to be so sick. Beautiful neighborhood. Like.
Speaker: It's 10 minutes from the nearest station, but we'll get into the difference between looking at it on Google maps and actually walking it is is a very different thing. Man, me and Joey learned that. I'm excited to hear this. i mean really sex Yeah, but yeah. there was a built It was built in like the eighties, I think. Seventies or eighties, late seventies or eighties. And yeah, it's, it's gorgeous. um um much we have It was 30K US, so around 40 something Canadian for the whole thing. Let's go. I looked at photos. Jeez, you scored. Okay. I'm just going to jump around here. I'm going to put the listing in the Spotify description here, but does it look like the photos?
Speaker: It looks better than the photos. so What? Really? It looks better than the photos. Like we saw the photo and okay, this place looks pretty good. It looks, and then we got the video walkthrough from Yoshi and he'd like, and we were like, wow, this is really nice. This is even because you're not getting the in -between shots, right? You're not going like how, like from the entrance transitioning to like the Japanese style rooms and how that connects once you actually go through it and then actually doing it in person.
Speaker: it but It was better than I thought. I didn't know how that was possible, but it's anybody. Wow. Glad this is not pre -recorded or this is not a pre -scripted thing. How did you decide Nara? You were like very specific. You like knew what you wanted from our consultation. like how do you end up but That's our number one question people ask us. Where should I buy in Japan? like How would you answer that question? And why did you buy Nara?
Speaker: We actually spent my wife and i we spent i want to say at least five hours going when we bought the premium like subscription oh yeah and then we spent we had to write there's no way we couldn't and we spent five hours at least over several nights looking through.
Speaker: a billion listings, right? We're like, this is how much power you say. Yeah. We're like, okay, we don't really want to go above this much. We want somewhere with a little more space. And when you put in those kinds of parameters, it really pushes you out of the Tokyo area. It pushes you into somewhere that's more in like the rural countryside area. And we've been to Nara, right? We love Nara. We've been to Nara before. We love the Osaka area. So it's okay. Nara sounds like a great place as a starting point to look around.
Speaker: And we had a couple of really specific criteria we were looking at. I was really keen on it being close to a station because it's, oh, there's some places that are super good, but that's one of the traps. It's okay. I don't want to walk 30 minutes to a station. I don't want to walk and that I don't want to be so completely isolated. I got to go for a two hour commute every time I want to get groceries. So I was being super diligent about how close we were to a station. But not just trusting the the listing is actually going in on Google Maps and like tracking the path to the closest station. Okay, does that seem doable? Okay, does that seem doable? And yeah, Laura was the starting point just as we know that it's the area that we love. And then but we branched out we look through Kobe, we look through Shizuoka, ah we look through the Chiba area as well further away from Tokyo. There was one place in Aomori that was like six grand, there were like, Oh, but it's so far away. almo is cold It's cold. The house score is at 6k. And I was like, Oh man, that's insane. But I can't, I cannot do it. is that Hey, second, for this, you've you've started, you've opened the door at this point, Justin, it's, there's a lot of more, we bought our first one that we consecutively bought three more, like within the same year. see If I can afford it, it's, it's tempting. It's tempting. Now they know how simple the process is too.
Speaker: Before we touch on the process, I'm curious, why, or what, what, what is the intent of this? Are you using this house as a vacation home? Are you trying to rent it out? And when you bought, and what is the intended purpose of this house? Vacation home, mostly. Ideally, if I can find it like ah a visa sponsorship, I could work in Japan and just live there permanently. That'd be pretty sick. But for now, I want to be three months on, three months off, maybe sometimes trying the digital nomad visa, staying for six. But just living in Japan, it's that's happened.
Speaker: Being able to go to Japan and having the only costs be like flights and then whatever things we buy and everything to be. Not even worrying about hotels and so on, always having a place to stay and eventually just having a retirement home as well. Even if we only stay for three months at a time, I'm going to be going back to Japan for the rest of my life. So having that kind of solid base in Japan is, that's the main reason.
Speaker: Oh yeah. And yeah, again, you're speaking exactly how we feel went in exactly for those same reasons. But okay. Let's talk about the process. So again, you were one of our first folks through just to give a little context. We have since built a lot of like educational resources. When we talked to Yoshi on the background, we've been following along and checking in with Yoshi every week. Every time I talk to him, oh, Justin's really easy. He's got this. So you have been the smoothest process here, but talk to us a little bit about the process. And you've never bought in Canada before, right? No, never. Okay. So this is your first transaction process. So talk me through a little bit what, how was it? What were the good points? What were some of the bad points?
Speaker: the The biggest thing is I'm a really skeptical, risk -averse person. And when I see a a place, it's, oh, can you buy a house for 30 K U S and okay, what's the catch? Clearly, if I'm, am I going to get to the place and this is going to be an empty lot and I just buy like a parking lot somewhere is like, you never really know. Cause especially when it's so far away and I have Asian parents and relatives and they're all like, Oh, you don't, can you really trust these people? And I think it's fine. But that was the kind of the thinking I was.
Speaker: doing as much work as I can to validate things on my own. So that's why when I came in and when we, when I had the consultation, we already had everything planned out. I know this is how much it costs. This is exactly what we want. This is where we want to go from here. It just tell us what we need to do next because we wanted to just be really informed, informed consumers, informed home buyers moving in. And that's the mindset. I think it's really important that helped us get such a smooth home buying process. It seems like you did so much of the research on the front end that by the time it was like time to perform, it it went very easily and smoothly. And I think that's the homework we don't see initially, but that happens on the backend, right? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Speaker: And there's, I think with everyone, even ourselves included, like there's always that leap of faith moment where you're like, wow, am we getting scammed? Or, like you know, it's such an unknown territory that my parents said the same thing to you. Like, what are you guys doing buying this event at home in Japan? I don't know. I think it's cool. I think it's cool. Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. ah I think for me, it was the moment where like, i'm I'm about to hit the button to send over the deposit. Cause if it was going to be a scam, it'll be right now. It'd be right now deposit gets sent and then it's gone and it's now it's fine. And it was completely fine for anyone listening. It's not a scam i'm guarantee. And not being paid off for this, but no, it was an amazing process and it was a amazing kind of journey and it really showed like.
Speaker: Or at least for me, for our experience, how easy it was, how easy it could be for a foreigner who had, can't speak Japanese, never bought a house and just to get the whole process done in a few months. Yep. For current of context, Yoshi was her agent. So Yoshi is like the effing man, right? He's incredible. If I have friends who are buying in the Osaka area, I would like to, I would recommend Yoshi as I might reach out to you guys. Hey, come up with Yoshi, please. Cause Yoshi's the goat.
Speaker: Yep. Yoshi's the goat. Um, has he did Yoshi action. We'll come back to you later. Uh, but general transaction time started in August, got keys in October. Things moved really fast with your process. I remember like within the first two weeks, I think you had already been like.
Speaker: let's send it right it was like yeah so you did the console with us you talked to yoshi you paid our fee and signed the paperwork and we had an inspection or we had the property viewing a week after or something is that right yeah the the the yeah the property viewing was really fast just to make sure the place was legit and then the next thing was the inspection and that took a bit of time but i think it was a very valuable thing even it was a little more expensive than expected it was a valuable oh yeah I forgot about that. So it was just a double click on that. So your inspection, we often quote people and say rough estimate and inspections cost $500 to $1 ,000. I think yours was like above that, right? Like closer to 1 .5. Yeah, it was a one. It was like 1 .5. You know why that's it's still a little bit of anomaly. Like your house is pretty big, I think. But do you think, did you get any insights from Yoshi on why that was so expensive? I don't know why it was. Maybe that's just, I have no idea. Cause I don't know the standard, right? Of, of.
Speaker: how much it is, maybe it's the space, maybe it's actually 2000 square foot is pretty big. Yeah. So like they were really thorough. Like for me, just Google translating the document. They were going into things that, you know, beyond what I was looking at. Oh, there's like a three degree slant in the kitchen. and like I don't care. Yeah. No, I mean, it's good. it It was incredibly thorough. It was like, Hey, if you rub your hand on the outside of the wall, some little paint came off. I don't care. I appreciate it.
Speaker: there were some really good things like, like how damp the basement was. So then the basement, the under house area, whether there were animals in the attic and stuff like that, any markings for bugs and such. So having that was a real peace of mind. It's okay. No, there's not like a nest of something hidden away. Cause that's the scary part, right? yeah the place It's like, oh, it's actually like a termite infested infestation. You had no idea. And now it's too late. Now you're screwed. But it gave us that peace of mind to really move forward with everything.
Speaker: curious, what were some of the like things in that home inspection that you're like, Ooh, yellow flag and anything that really concerned you more or scared you a little bit. Here's the thing. and This part of a bigger conversation, I think is literally when we were buying the house, there was that big consign mega quakes scare. Oh yeah. Right. And I was already, okay. Earthquake is a big thing for me. I'm a little worried about earthquakes. And so it's, Oh God, the cracks in the foundation. I was like, Oh, okay. We got to get those fixed up. There's a couple of cracks there. A couple of long cracks.
Speaker: cracks in the house and okay, we should get that fixed up as well. That's probably the closest thing to a yellow flag. Otherwise it was it was fine. I knew there was going to be some issues with the foundation. but it not Yeah. It's like a 50 year old house. Exactly. 40 year old house is, I don't know what 40 or 50 year old house has like a perfect foundation. Yeah, it's nicer than the house I have here. Okay. There we go. Exactly.
Speaker: Okay, so home inspection, after that, you did you send, how was the negotiation process? The offer was, I think, quite straightforward from what I remember. Yeah, we didn't bother trying to fight the price. i'm like um'm i The price is good, honestly. So we just let's just get this thing going. Especially because we heard that the price recently lowered by itself anyways, because yeah I think people were saying that the the driveway was a bit too steep and narrow. But since we're not driving, it didn't matter to me. So yeah I am currently happy with this price. I don't want to put any pressure on Yoshi. i Let's just go with it. So very straightforward.
Speaker: Thank you for that. I think that makes, I think that's also why the transaction process was so smooth is like when you go out strong within the seller's agent to say, Hey, we're going to pay the price. They like lower their guard a little bit. Sometimes I think foreigners are always, Hey, can we get a little bit off that after the home inspection is the, I don't know, American tire kicking strategy. yeah Absolutely. Um, so I think, yeah, by going at that price and I think what 4 .5 million was 4 .5 million. Okay.
Speaker: That's, again, killer. I have no complaints about that price. Okay, so you went for the full price and then the contractor was accepted. So it was something i've we've become acutely aware of after the offer is accepted. It takes a long time to get the keys in hand, right?
Speaker: Yes. There was the whole judicial scriber thing. Didn't know what that was, but it was fine. It was just a call with some random guy and in Japan. And then we wait a bit and then we got the email and everything was good to go. Yep. We will do a full episode on demystifying the judicial Scrivener at some point. oh scriin does no No worries. je We've been researching this space so much and it's like still a black box, but yeah, they we're finding that.
Speaker: that emotional moment where you get the offer accepted. And then you're like, you want to celebrate, but it's like, oh, wait, it's going to take a month to settle is like the most unsatisfying or maybe not unsatisfying, but I know, uh, how'd you feel in that in limbo? Were you like, I got the house or like still a little worried?
Speaker: I think it's not that bad because it's, even if I had the house, it doesn't mean anything because I I'm not there. Right. It's not like I can move in right now. Anyways, I was, we were planning on going to Japan regardless in October. So it just worked out that I could now see the house as well. And now it becomes an official like business trip. So it's like, either way, I was going to go see the house in October, as long as everything was settled by then. It didn't matter if I got the offer in September or if I got the offer October 1st.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's a new ah me and Joey were talking about this. This is like a new category of travel. Go to Japan and buy Akia. I know you had, that was your initial intent. I think in our first console, you're like, Hey, I'm going to go in November.
Speaker: I want to get this process started, right? Yep. Yep. Okay. So yeah, I think that's, that is probably 70 % of our customers at this point where they're like, Hey, I'm planning to go to Japan on this trip. I would like to buy a house at the same time. So yeah, worked out for you, right? Oh, it did. It did. Absolutely.
Speaker: Let's talk about the funnest part here. you You got the keys from Yoshi or did, how was the walking in or checking out your house for the first time? where were your Oh, it was it was incredible. it so My wife and I, we were in Tokyo, right? And I was like, I'll just go check out the house. I don't want to, I'm just going to go see it. You stay here. So I took, I all you went soho okay went solo. I was like, you know, it's fine. It's fine. I didn't want to drag her all the way there and and she'll come see it eventually.
Speaker: So I tried taking a flight from Tokyo to Osaka because one of my coworkers is is Japanese. And they were like, yeah, don't take the train. Try taking the flight. okay And I was like, really? And I looked at the prices and because I ordered late, if ah it costs 90 bucks from Tokyo to Osaka. And I was like, if I was earlier, that would have cost 60 bucks. So gave it a shot. first side way I usually always take the Shinkansen, but the Shinkansen is like $150 roughly.
Speaker: so have I had done the timing a better cause I overall, I spent more time flying cause I got to the ah airport like two hours early and then so on and so forth. But the end of the day, it only cost me $90. So landed in a Tommy, I think Tommy. Yeah. And went all the way to where I was in, in Nara. Okay. I got, I got a god hotel nearby, put all my stuff down middle of the night. not Okay. It's seven o 'clock. I tried to walk from it Tommy to that the place, Tommy, sorry, from the hotel to the place. Okay. ah
Speaker: 30 minute walk in the night. Gorgeous, gorgeous walk. I get to my place and oh, there's no utilities and there's no power. So I'm walking through this. Maybe I'll send you the video later. No, please do. Through the house in pitch black. I just walked up a massive hill to get here. I don't even remember. It's on top of the hill. We're going to talk about that in a sec. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm breathing.
Speaker: I'm like stressed out. The house is is is super hot because there's no air con or anything. There's no power. And I'm just quietly walking through this pitch black house with my flashlight on my camera. And it's terrifying. It's it's like something out of Silent Hill that I'm going through. And it made for a great video. And they was I'm like, oh my God, I'm so scared right now. I got to get out of here.
Speaker: So that was a really fun first impression. ah Even I came back in the morning and the house is gorgeous, but it was a really fun first look at the house. It looks like it's like ah an abandoned house in the Japanese countryside. Really fun experience. yeah We do the exact same thing. And sometimes we're like, oh man, we're so tired from traveling, but the excitement, go and that you you're like, I'm 10 minutes away from my house. I own this. that That's such an exciting feeling. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And in that first Luigi mansion, you open up the door. What surprised you? Me and Joey personally, we were like, oh shit. Did we make a mistake? Did you have a moment like that? I, this is impossible for us to know because I'm like six two. I'm pretty tall. Yeah. youre i so I'm surprised. I saw the photo of you and Yoshi. I'm like, whoa, Justin's huge. that There's an area with, which is going to be my bedroom. There's four Japanese style, like tatami mat rooms in the center of the first floor.
Speaker: And in between those rooms are like sliding doors. I hit my head on each of those. They go to my forehead. I'm like, oh no. There was, there was no way. There was, it would have been impossible to predict that. Right. And it was like, okay, I'm just going to have to get used to it. I'm going to hit my head on it for a long time. ah But that's just how it is.
Speaker: Besides that, not really. Everything was like, it was really hot and humid. That's less about the house and more about the location of Japan. Did Yoshi organize a deep cleaning or something before? Or or was it like, that was the role how was the raw house? It's super clean. Everyone I showed the videos to, they were shocked at how clean the place was. If Yoshi did a deep cleaning, he didn't tell me. like Okay. You scored, man. our first I feel like we've joined all, we've been going into dirty places at this point. Oh, really? And so we, oh man, that, okay. So that, congratulations. That's such a good, thank you. I mean, not anyone listening to, not everyone's going to have this experience. Like I'm curious how, tell me a little bit about the house itself or the owner. Did you find the backstory? How long was it abandoned for? Who was the seller?
Speaker: I actually have no idea about any of that. ah It never really came out. I never dug into it. The county Japanese, but whoever it was, but kudos to them. They took really good care of this place and they made it spotless for me, basically. yeah Okay. I'm looking at photos. I'm just like, holy shit. You really scored. Like the Gen Con is huge, right? Massive. Okay. So you came back in the morning. You're up on a hill. So it sounds like the, no matter, ah you,
Speaker: Great hill spot view, I know, but yeah how was the walk from the train station or wherever you were expecting to surprise you? as It sounds like, right? So there's two, okay. So there's there's two train stations, right? there's There's a major train station where the city center is. And that's where normally you would want to be. That's like a 30 minute walk, right? A very beautiful walk, pretty straight. And then at the last two minutes, it starts going uphill. Oh, no. no Pretty brutal. and I'm going to be really fit after all this. And then the other direction, there's a small station, 10 minutes away, but right when you leave the house, there is like a five minute incline that is so brutal, like mountain climbing, basically. I'm like, Oh my God, this is, I'm going to go the long way from now on. Cause even though it's only, it's a much shorter walk.
Speaker: It's not even worth it. I'll just take the scenic route. And when you get to the the train station, what I didn't know from Google maps is that on these really small rural trains, they come every half hour. So it wouldn't have been faster if we just to have walked the longer path. That's the journey. But it is a gorgeous walk. You go through some old Japanese neighborhoods, you cross a bridge over a river. It's just stunning views. Awesome. Curious as to the view from your place. I totally forgot. your So how is this perched up? Are there like,
Speaker: a couple close by neighbors, how what describe the area a little bit. So it's like a windy road. So I'm like a windy road going up like a mountain is probably the best way I can describe it. And then my house is there on a big concrete block. So it's looking out over like the majority of the city. There are neighbor, there's a neighbor right behind me, slightly higher up. and And there's neighbors like below me as well that I can look down into, like I can see everything around there. Yeah.
Speaker: And did you, I'm curious, did you talk to your neighbors at all? No, I might. Once I get more comfortable with my Japanese, just be like, Hey, nice to meet you. I'm the new, and your're your new neighbor. Please take some gifts or something and just try to be like, keep the peace. Give it the gift. The gifts all will always work. um Especially from Canada, if you bring something.
Speaker: That's why, yeah, I'm always but these days, there's a lot of foreigners who are going to other like countries like Japan aren't the most gracious and I really hate that. because I have such a love and respect for Japan and I want to make sure, hey, if there's any issues, just let me know. I just, I'm not going to want to disturb, I don't want to ruin anything here. I'm just going to be quietly living in my house every now and then.
Speaker: And that's the mindset I have going into this place. Absolutely. but Okay. So going back to the house, you see it in the day, any other surprises, or it's just really just like exactly as you expected. Hmm. Is it like hotter or colder? Did it smell so much hotter? Even the day, um, one lovely thing is that there's, there's really good wind from like, uh, the second floor kitchen. I just, I basically sat at the, at the window for a good 40 minutes, just like taking in the wind and just resting. It was so nice.
Speaker: Um, no real surprises compared to, yeah, compared to when I went the night before and compared to the video walkthrough. It's nicer than I thought nicer and cleaner than I thought. Now the true question, how did your wife like it? Did she, did she, had she seen it yet? He'd seen it. She was part of the with video walkthrough. I went in, he had a full video walkthrough on my own and was contacting her throughout the entire thing. Yeah, she loves it.
Speaker: We've seen it in person yet. Not yet. Not yet. Oh, when's her one's going to be her first time. She must be dying to see it. Right. Yeah. like Ideally. We're going to go back early next year. We were, or she'll be soon and then it starts the whole thing starts. Okay.
Speaker: our Congratulations on landing this place. Again, things went smoothly here. Oh, a quick question. Money transfer process. So this gets, this is a confusing part. It's something we're trying to navigate a little bit. So for, did you pay the deposit and wise and the rest in OFX or did you do OFX for both?
Speaker: I did ofx for both but they're for the inspector and i had to do paypal because it was taken so long it was taking so long and maybe that's because ofx does extra checks and balances i don't know um but it it would take like upwards of a week and whereas paypal it came over immediately paypal has i think high bill has higher fees i don't know i don't know why one is better than the other but ofx did take longer than we expected PayPal has, I think a maximum or something similar to why I think wise you can transfer like 10 K or something like that. And PayPal is something like that. But yeah, I think we're, we're finding OFX is like the only way to transfer larger sums of cash here. So you did three, you tried three transactions, right? So your first one was slow, got held up. Second one went through in your third one. You sell it advanced, right? yeah the Yeah, the third one, we have plenty of time.
Speaker: So what happened was I think we sent, I sent the amount for the inspection through OFX. So that's the second payment, but it was so long and Yoshi's like, Hey, we need the money. Otherwise we're not going to, we're going to miss the deadline. So I just sent the same amount through PayPal and they deducted that sec, that extra payment from the final ah third payment.
Speaker: Okay. Yep. That makes sense. So yeah yeah, we're figuring out still, you know, I personally, full -time I work in crypto and trying to figure out just like, how do we transfer money to Japan smoothly? And it there is no good solution yet. So optimistic in the the future, then anyone listening who's buying, I think sending the money over earlier is never a bad thing. Right. Okay. Uh, so you have a house. Congratulations. What are you going to do next with it? What's the plan moving forward here?
Speaker: Here's the thing. or ah ah I mentioned the earthquake stuff and a big, one of the big things we were going to do is, okay, we got an earthquake proof this place, and and but that plan has gone a little sideways because we got the quote back for the earthquake. Oh, how much is it? So you originally were okay. Yoshi, I know Yoshi said it was like 10 to 15 K. I'm like, okay, sure. I'll put aside 10 to 15 K Canadian and we'll see how it goes and we'll see how much it is. And we got the quote back.
Speaker: And the price for fully earthquake proofing the place is three times the cost of the house. And I'm like, okay, that's not, yeah, it it was like 15 million or something. And as a guy, we we can't. That doesn't make sense. Okay. Yeah. So maybe maybe that's the size of it. I don't know. And I was shocked. to I was like, okay, I got insurance. So I guess we're going to, we're going to bank on the insurance. So we're we're going to get some minor stuff done. They they had a thing about termite reduction or prevention. They had a thing about fixing up the foundation, like we talked about. It just wouldn't be.
Speaker: the full earthquake proofing and getting it up to standard that I originally wanted. So that's going to be fun. But yeah, that's really interesting. And um I want to talk to Yoshi about that. I'm curious. is Yeah, both your home inspection was like surprisingly expensive. I'm curious if it's like the house, the age, the location, maybe because it's up such a steep hill or something. maybe Maybe it is the hill, right? um I don't know. Yeah. And then our earthquake proofing wise too, I know in our initial chat, your house is like on this mountain. We were a little bit worried from a landslide zone kind of perspective. And do you think that kind of came into play with that earthquake proofing quote? I don't know. Because when we did the inspection, we're not in any of the danger zones for the land, for the landslide stuff. I don't know. And when I was looking at the breakdown of the costs, of ah it was mostly for installing metal fittings, I think the Google translates a little iffy but
Speaker: It's the metal reinforcement and that maybe just because there's so much house to do it for, they jack the price up. So it's unfortunate, but we're just going to have to skip out on that and just hope for the best. Yeah, it doesn't make sense to. make spouss for that If I can afford that much, I would have gone to different house. Yeah. That's too bad.
Speaker: We get that question a lot too. It's just, yeah, the same with our battery spot. I think we did like light retrofitting and not like maybe it sounds like yours was a little bit more hardcore and maybe because your house is bigger and on a hill or something like that. But yeah, yeah. I think at the core of it, people are going to have to take risks. I think it's, we get that question so often. Aren't you worried about some super earthquake coming through? Yeah. It's going to happen if it happens. Yeah.
Speaker: The good thing is we got the insurance in, and if something happens, at least we're covered. We can rebuild something, and it sucks, but that's as good as we're going to get. I live in the west coast of Vancouver, Canada, and We're along a major earthquake fault for our entire lives. And oh, the big one's coming any year now. And I'm 35. Nothing's ever happened since. Maybe it'll still... Knock on wood somewhere. Knock on wood, knock on wood. But I'm no stranger to people saying that there's going to be a massive earthquake anytime soon. Absolutely. I think what you said is great. We just have to take some risks. Otherwise, I'd never buy us. Otherwise, I'd just stay here forever.
Speaker: Yep. Your doer, your sender, Justin, I think, yeah, through the process, it was very clear that you had done your research and you're like, let's go for it. And I think that's absolutely something who's, who wants to buy a house needs to bring bring that level of research. Okay. So it sounds like the house, a fun fact, like anything crazy that your house is located nearby, like do you find a ramen shop you really like, or what was any surprises on neighborhood?
Speaker: There is a Kura sushi 20 minutes away and it is cheaper than any other Kura sushi I've seen in Japan. It's 105 a plate. And I spent, oh man, it was $3 or something. No, 105. So it was, it's 80 cents a plate Canadian, maybe like 50 cents US. So I spent like $25 and just ate like 40 plates when I went there on the night. And I'm like, this is the best. This is the best. time There's no train there, right? Yeah.
Speaker: Because it's purpose for locals. There's no train nearby. There's no, there's just like maybe a bus stop, but I just walk in and want to take the bus. So they don't need to jack up the prices to like, because like you can, you can book row it's two bucks or 200 yen a plate. But here it's 105. It's an incredible deal for someone like me. So y I'll be going there a lot.
Speaker: Isn't it absolutely crazy how cheap food is in Japan? like It is. You're back in Vancouver now, I'm sure. It's like night and day, right? Oh, brutal. Absolutely brutal. like I Uber eats some McDonald's and I was like, okay, this is $25 for a meal. This is horrible. I hate this. When you back calculate, how much is that in yen? Oh, shit. That was 3 ,000, 4 ,000 yen. I could have bought... ah I could have had all you can eat. Exactly. I could have had all you can eat. All you can eat from from qkakcku but for the price of of McDonald's. Just depressing. Yeah.
Speaker: Cool, man. Now I'm going to switch gears a little bit now. I just want to get general, our audience are a lot of people who want to buy Akiyas, similar to our age, again, very priced out of their home regions to buy a house. Like who, who do you think is the right person to buy a $30 ,000 Akiya in Japan?
Speaker: I think someone who definitely has that kind of disposable income. I know 30 ,000 is a lot cheaper than any house here, but after you add everything up, even that much, even though I had a comfortable amount of savings, I was still pretty nervous about spending that much. So make sure you're not putting yourself out by going for an IKEA.
Speaker: One thing I wish I had was, I i don't know anything about like DIY. I don't know anything about repairing or I can barely build Ikea furniture. So that's going to be an uphill battle for me when I... Learning experience. Yeah, it's going to be a rough first month while I try to set up my house. So if you have any yeah um you have any background in that'll really help. but Don't be afraid to do a lot of research. to If you see a place, just favorite it and then look into as in look into that area as much as you can. Look into Google Maps, Google Translate the listings, as much work as you can to see would I be comfortable living in this place? yeah What shops are nearby? Are there any English -speaking shops? or
Speaker: Because there there are some places where it's like they they are not built for foreigners because the menu is like handwritten. and I don't think I can even Google translate that. i There's no chance. but I have no shot of even trying. I'm just going to skip it for now and I'll come back later. i You just skipped it. You should have challenged it. All right, come back to yeah it. might I might come back. cause there's like oh yeah There's a couple of sushi places nearby. There's some soba places and it's a whole, I'm sure the local soba place you know would be incredible. It would be the best thing I've ever eaten, but it's intimidating for me. It's just a gaijin.
Speaker: Yeah, I would say someone who's not afraid of taking that risk and who's willing to put in the work. like ah You can't just go in blind because that's how you'll end up getting a place that may not match what you're actually looking for. if you're just the price You killed it though, too. I want to also set expectations that like photos don't always look like what it is. And your photos, if it actually is what it looks like, man, you really scored here. and yeah I'll send you the videos later. Send me videos, photos. I want to see it all.
Speaker: Okay. And then on the flip side to your advice here, I think there's a little bit of analysis paralysis sometimes. I think, I'm, I think both of us are Asian raised in North America and we're trying to be a little bit risk averse and make sure the numbers work out and in Japan's numbers don't work out from an ah ROI perspective. I think all the time it's, you can find higher yield and other assets. And also same with there's so many Aki on the market and there's what really made you like take that jump. Was it? but Yeah. What catalyzed that for you?
Speaker: I'm sorry, for that specific house or just buying a house in general? Just buying a house in general. will Just being like, okay, like I've done my research. I've done enough. I think a lot of people will research too much and not take that action is what I worry. I think that a lot of it was that time crunch of, okay, I need to make the best decision I can, but I have a time limit because we're going to Japan in a couple of months. they We need to get it done by then. We don't want to let an opportunity slip by and we don't want this the listing to disappear. Because there's a couple of places that we found that were actually really good.
Speaker: And then we came back the next day and they were gone. They were removed and they were like, oh shit, we got it. We got to go. We got to go. So we had like maybe a short list of 25 different places that we just kept whittling down and whittling down until we got to the one we had. Another thing about just buying houses, we never saw it as an investment.
Speaker: Okay. And we, like, I have friends who live in Japan and they were very honest to me about Japanese houses are not investments. They did appreciate. I'm not planning on selling it for a fortune later on. I'm not planning on flipping this place. I just want a place to live. And when you have that, when you, yeah, you if you have an investment in mindset, it's a very different house you're looking for, right? you Maybe you probably want something closer to Tokyo or something near a major city that you could turn around and sell or even Airbnb.
Speaker: No one's going to come on Airbnb, my place all the way in the countryside. i mean Who knows? Who knows? Who can survive like the 30 minute walk up the hill and everything. So for me, it was simple. That's awesome, man. I think, yeah, the time crunch and going back to it, anyway we got to figure out a name for this new travel. Go to Japan and buy a Nokia, but I do find that helps a lot of people because time is finite, right? they They can't be in Japan all day. They can do as much as they can lining up the ideal property, but seeing it, you actually bought it without seeing it in person though, right?
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what ah ah I was anxious about. That's what a lot of relatives are anxious about, but it was just one of the things. well know Oh, yeah. No, I've, I've had some talks with relatives. I mean, you can't, I will seeing it, but maybe.
Speaker: Yeah, exactly. You're, there's always that fear of like, you go there and it's it's not that the house looks nothing like the video. It looks nothing like the photos and you just bought a piece of crap and now you can't do anything. And that's what a lot of Asian relatives, they were all kind of warning me about that. And you just like, no, I don't think this is a scam. Yoshi seems legit. You guys seem legit. It'll be, and it's that's the leap of faith. And that this is me telling anyone who's listening that this one is, it's this, this process is legitimate.
Speaker: as far as I could go. it's Thank you, Justin. That was a glowing review. Again, not scripted here. Not scripted. Awesome, Justin. Let's end on that. Again, thank you so much for trusting us. You were one of our early folks in the process. We will be in Japan in January, hopefully. Hopefully we can come check it out.
Speaker: But yeah, again, thank you so much. We we really appreciate you taking the time and and giving us that leap of faith. You know, I know it's such a scary moment when you're like clicking that money. Are these guys scammers or? Yeah. Thank you for clarifying. We are not scammers. They are not. They are not. You will get a nice Japanese house you put in the work.
