Transcript
Speaker: So that's like $28,000. So yeah, I mean, think about it. You get a four-bedroom house for that much money and in honestly a city that I think more and more people are going to discover to be really interesting. Because I have been learning Japanese, I use these apps to try to like talk to random Japanese people and like get my...
Speaker: Am speaking up better? And I talked to people recently, I'm like, what do you think about Kanazawa? And they're like, Ishikawa prefecture is like my favorite place in Japan. Kanazawa is like one of my favorite places to visit. okay And, you know, my my Japanese teacher, she lives in Osaka and she's like, man, my husband and i love to go up there. That's like, it's so pretty. And that's a good sign too.
Speaker: Welcome back to the buying a house in Japan podcast, the number one Akiya podcast in the world. Today I am recording solo or actually rather a new guest. We have Devin Silvernail here today. He's actually going through the Akiya Mart direct process right now with us. I think we'll talk about a little bit more, but offer just submitted. So fingers crossed.
Speaker: yep um Devin is located currently in France. He's been helping us actually edit our podcasts. So if you've been noticing an uptick or an up level in our podcast the past couple months, you can and i give a round of applause to Devin here. But Devin, welcome to the show. Really excited to have you here today.
Speaker: Thanks for having me. And if you've noticed the quality go down, and attribute that to somebody else. It that only is only going up. You've put a level of attention that, you know, before I would just like click AI slop, like generate, cut the words. So it has been sounding better. So thank you, Devin, first off for for leveling up our podcast and looking forward to continue to improve it. But Devin, give us a quick intro yourself here. You have quite an interesting background. Take it away.
Speaker: Yeah, thanks, Take. Kind of funny and to actually be recording ah with you because, you know, I reached out because I was a podcast listener as well. um Kind of shot in the dark ah to see how I could help out with the whole Ocumart project. So I was really impressed with that. Thank you for that.
Speaker: um But yeah, like you said, I live in France. I either have a really good American impression or I'm not French. And so I'll tell you, it's the latter. i grew up in Seattle ah and I've been in France now for about two years.
Speaker: um My wife is French, you know, and we we thought about we thought it was basically time to get ah moving here after she'd spent 10 years in America. ah You know, be closer to family, got a kid, you know, be closer to cousins and things like that.
Speaker: French education systems also just better and it's cheaper. um And ah yeah, previous to this, I mean, it's kind of funny that I'm editing podcasts ah my in my past life.
Speaker: i was ah I was doing policy development. I worked for a city council member in Seattle, ah creating policy um around housing. So it's kind of adjacent to this yeah and and some other things.
Speaker: ah But now, you know, stepping out and doing a new, um you know, turning the page on a new chapter. And and here we are. Damn, you have an a exciting, exciting life, Devin. Did you ever think like when you were a kid that you'd be living in France or there's like a 0% thought?
Speaker: No, it's actually kind of crazy because, um you know, coming in here, i mean, being in France, speaking French and in general was a complete, everything was on a whim. And for me, mean, tying into you the whole Japan thing, you know, in high school, the foreign language that I took was Japanese. And that's what I wanted to do.
Speaker: and um... I think I did that because I didn't want to learn a a European foreign language and it was the only non-European language we had in my school.
Speaker: ah But then when I went to college, I i i realized, well, I don't don't think I've ever spoken Japanese to anybody. and And, you know, and i was living in San Francisco at the time and I figured, well, you know, why not living in San Francisco, a place where um French is not useful? Why don't I learn French? And and so I did and um ended up just walking by my school study abroad office one day I saw that they were doing study abroad in Paris and i said,
Speaker: I guess, you know, why not? I guess apply to that. Why not? Um, turns out it was really expensive, um, but I can get a scholarship. So I applied to that scholarship and I got it and I ended up here and I met my wife when I was studying here and, um, and that's where I am now, but it was totally a whim. I mean, it was just totally, um, I decided like, ah, why the, why the hell not? And that's kind of the way that I, they, uh, fell in with you guys. I said, now, you know, why the hell not? The worst they can do is, you know, reach out to them and they can, you know, they can brush me off, but here we are it's really interesting like none of this project would actually have happened if i didn't i or joey did not study abroad in tokyo so i think if if for some reason we have a college-age student listening to this like damn it just go take that year abroad i think it really does change your life if you had versus staying in the stateside and
Speaker: You know it changes the trajectory of your life in ways you can't comprehend. So, yeah, I think both of us, a lot of people that we work with actually have done that live abroad, study abroad, and it really helps kind of broaden the horizons, but also changes life for the better, I think.
Speaker: um Okay, couple of things I want to touch on there. So you're doing housing policy in Seattle. That was what you were doing for a little bit. yeah well so yeah i mean my portfolio was pretty big uh so i did anything from parks and transportation um trying to remember the word in english now because i haven't said it in like two years uh uh housing and and urban development i was also a committee clerk yeah so that's just the people like if you watch c-span they're the ones that are calling out like the um the name of the bill and they're sitting in a computer looking really really bored um you know so
Speaker: Did a lot of that, yeah. And I mean, anything from, ah it was mostly affordable housing and in trying to get housing for people who are like living um without a house and, you know, trying to finance that kind of stuff. And i i really got into this kind of,
Speaker: almost i mean i wouldn't call it Japan adventure and investing side because you know that's not ah um an amazing idea. But the the idea of investing else in general ah came through that job.
Speaker: my My best friend at work and I, we used to sit there during the budget when we wanted to... like uh we just wanted to walk away because it was hellish during budget and we would talk about investing and um that actually put the uh that put the spark in me uh as well for this and that happened two or three years before i even thought you know a house in japan would be possible understood was just for for the for context here have you purchased a property before in either the stateside or france Yeah.
Speaker: So definitely have purchased in Seattle, ah which I thought was impossible, honestly. Yep. I think um for anyone trying to buy a house in the States, like it is very hard. Freaking hard.
Speaker: We had a credit union in the States that offered first time home buyer mortgage, made a little bit easier. And then we also bought a house here in France, which which was in some ways easier and the worst experience of my life. Yeah.
Speaker: mean, it really, it took us from the time we decided to buy and we talked to the um the company here who was selling our house to the time that we purchased. It took us like eight months at least. And they had to like sift through all your bank records. Yeah.
Speaker: It's nuts. Okay. So you got, you have a property in North America, Europe, and here we go. We're going for, for APAC, specifically Japan. What kind of sparked that or which what triggered you to, to make this move and want to buy something or have you been thinking about it for a long time?
Speaker: Yeah, it's really interesting because kind of like coming to France, you know i didn't think that that was going to happen. i never I never imagined living in Europe and and never imagined ah even visiting Japan after high school.
Speaker: You know, when i was in high school, our Japanese teacher, the reason i took it the entire time I was in school because our Japanese teacher kept saying, oh, next year, you know, we're going to go to Tokyo, you guys. hope The French club back to Paris. So we're going to go to Tokyo.
Speaker: That never happens. No. and and so you know from like age 18 to like 35 or so i kind of just didn't think about japan and i kind of just assumed that that that dream kind of died and uh at some point uh you know japan was just opening up after the pandemic and my wife and i saw you know the tickets were cheap and we decided to go and we went there and um Like some of that high school Japanese came back and we were able to interact with people and it was just such a cool time. We barely did anything on that trip, you know, it's a Tokyo and Hakone and that was really it. But um that kind of reopened everything for me. And then.
Speaker: um ended up going back a little bit later um and doing a bigger adventure. Osaka, the Shiminami Kaido, going to Shikoku. You did the bike ride? Yeah. Oh, awesome. That was ah and yeah i mean and that really At that point, I was like, shit, man. Okay, well, um I started relearning Japanese. this I do classes every Wednesday. I've been doing that for two two and a half years now. and and Then I was like, hmm.
Speaker: some YouTuber is telling me that I can buy a house in Japan. ok And it started to you know see that pop up and started to talk a little bit and one thing led to another. you know you know it was probably Shu, it was probably Shu, but you know there was other folks there too.
Speaker: I have to do a huge shout out to the the Bentons down in the Satouchi area. um You know, they I watched some of their videos too. That's where I thought we were going to be looking for a while. Down in Onomichi, Ahime Prefecture, Hiroshima Prefecture. But I ended up working with them for a little bit as well. ah Great people. And that's part of it as well.
Speaker: curious what was your like gateway into japanese culture was it like dragon ball z or video games or like yeah i think we're in the same yeah what was what was the uh the hook yeah yeah you know what it probably was honestly like dbz because we have And anime was pretty limited to at that time. So he was definitely like Dragon Ball Z. It was that tsunami block, you know, Dragon Ball Z. yeah That was legendary.
Speaker: Yeah. Um, pokemon and then, but you know, Pokemon, cause think Pokemon came out. I was like 10 and my cousin, I think we'd play that together when i was around 14, uh, Ichiro the goat yeah came to, uh, came to the Seattle Mariners that opened up a lot of it too, honestly. And so, um, Yeah, I would say it was a combination of the nerdiness on all levels, you know, because baseball is, I think, the nerdiest sport you can possibly ah follow.
Speaker: And ah the anime, video games, Nintendo was nearby yep ah for us, too. And, ah yeah, and it just kind of turned into a perfect storm, I suppose, leading into high school and taking Japanese. That's the classic formula for a thing.
Speaker: yeah um If you watch Toonami and you're buying a home in Japan now, all makes sense. I was like, peak peak childhood, you know, like watching Dragon Ball Z episodes where they're just like charging the entire episode and then playing Pokemon with your friends with a little cable and trading Pokemon. Like such a cool time that...
Speaker: I hope kids these days have that similar experience. I'm not sure if they do. For real. Well, I'll tell you, my best my best friend from childhood, and we're still friends, him and I met because I was walking my dog, and I walked past his house, and my my dog was like this husky that I, you know, is just crazy dog.
Speaker: ah Like, got out of my control, ran up to his door, and I was like, oh, shit, I'm so sorry. And the only only words he said to me, the first thing he said to me was, do you like Pokemon? Tight. Tight.
Speaker: So there you go. You know, and we've been friends since. All right. So let's jump into it. You've been, um, so you reached out to us first via our our our email. So we actually have a new alias podcast at akia-mart.com.
Speaker: If you are listening to this and you feel like you can contribute, we're We're open ears here. we you know were we're taking We're doing a lot of pilot projects with a lot of people here just because it's it's generally been me and Joey, but we we recognize there's a lot of stuff to build on the site, the podcast, the YouTube channel, Instagram, TikTok. it It really is crazy as we build this business how much...
Speaker: stuff there is to do so devon reached out to us so thank you for shooting that shot devon it's been great to have you on we have started the akimart direct process process with you which is our purchasing process give us the update how's it been thus far you know how's your search been where are you looking what what's happened this past month that We did honestly about a year, year and a half of prep work ah to even get to this point. Right. Like we tried to figure out where we wanted to be looking, the kind of houses we wanted, the kind of investment we would want to make.
Speaker: um And we really wanted to come prepared. and And so in October, we saw a house in Osaka, my favorite city in Japan. ah And it seemed perfect.
Speaker: named It was, you know, it was in a a great neighborhood. It was near a park that our kid loves. It was on ah a metro line that, you know, we knew pretty well.
Speaker: and And we're like, all right, well, let's go. we're That's the house we want. And it just turned out that that house... um They didn't want us, right? So we didn't we didn't quite match.
Speaker: um And, you know, during that time, we were also looking, like I said, in Onomichi, a town that my wife loves. I love it too. I think it's beautiful. it's It's small, but it's not too small. The mountains and the sea, bike riding, you got to love it. People are hype on Onamichi right now. It's probably actually and unsuspectingly popular, I think, amongst a lot of our customers. So if you're hearing this, this could be a signal. Maybe check out Onamichi.
Speaker: It's not that cheap, though. It is getting expensive. Yeah, it's getting more expensive. It kind of stagnated, honestly, in our price range over the past year. And that's why i we moved away from Onomichi eventually. But I mean, I got to put it this way there. If you're looking for i mean, if you want to do Minpaku or Yokan or something like that, there are 300,000 people coming through Onomichi every year just for the Shiminami Kaido.
Speaker: um And, you know, it's that there's that real culture there. If you're not looking for that, though, if you're looking for something that is is interesting, I think I called told Take that I thought it was like the Portland of Japan.
Speaker: It's very, like, crafty and artisanal, good coffee, et cetera. Okay. Seattle coffee is better than Portland coffee, but, ah you know. That, exactly. Yeah. ah um But yeah, no, it's cool. But we well we ended up um kind of drifting toward Kanazawa, which is a place that I had kept an eye on from a distance. Listener, where where' is Kanazawa located? Like in relation to Tokyo, how do you get from Tokyo? nart You land in Narita Airport, how do you get to Kanazawa?
Speaker: it is two and a half hours away from tokyo by shinkansen you have to go um i think it's from like somewhere in saitama that you have to take the the shinkansen to get there um but you know two and a half hours from from the largest city in the world utokyo and uh it's kind of north i guess northwest um it's north of kyoto what prefecture is kanazawa it's uh ishikawa okay so it's kind of like uh so if you're looking at japan and it's you know this like kind of jay looking type con you know formations on the left upper left side closer like niigata um area so south of niigata little little ways okay why kanazawa like did you go there before and you're like i like this place or you know what what what you know yeah
Speaker: Honestly, never been to Kanazawa. So we are kind of, it is a little bit of a shot in the dark, but you know, that is a place that we wanted to go to. And um had we had two months to go around Japan, it would have been a place that we went to, but we had to we had to pick where we wanted to go.
Speaker: um Eventually. And, man, I mean, we ended up in Matsuyama, right? So it's kind of a little bit of a ways away um and it would have never worked out. But again, you know, just from what I've seen, it has that has that Kyoto vibe um without the tourists.
Speaker: ah it's It's got multiple seasons, you know? i think that's the thing about Onomichi is it's warm to like unpleasantly hot.
Speaker: um You know, whereas you get snow, but you don't get like that crazy Tohoku snow, like where it's like, you know, six meters of snow in a year or whatever. I think it's only like ah a one and a half, two meters of snow a year in Kanazawa, so there's that.
Speaker: There's other really cool stuff around there that i that I personally just want to check out and I want to base camp for. The Inaka countryside around there looks really nice. And, you know, I want to visit the countryside, but I don't want to live there. So I need it to be in a city.
Speaker: um But, you know, for us, it's ah it's a moderately sized city, too. It's about 500, 400, 500,000 people. Um, where we live, you know, we live in the seventh largest city in France, Nantes, um, and we're at 300,000.
Speaker: and We have everything we need here. So, um, uh, you know, that's the way that we kind of look at it there too. Um, we can buy a couple of bikes, Mama Chari, you know, and ride around and, uh,
Speaker: and And that's all we need, you know, as long as we got access to the grocery store, we got the Shinkansen right there. We get to Tokyo in two and a half hours. We can get to Kyoto if we want to. We can get to Osaka. I mean, again, I just want to be able to have access to Osaka too. kind of That was interesting. I think within Ishikawa, yeah, we have had a couple people buy in Kanazawa. It's actually quite closer to Eric. You know, Eric's a big fan of of that upper kind of inland sea. So from a climate and and even snow perspective, you're not too far away.
Speaker: Um, okay. So Kanazawa, tell us about the property you found. How did you find it? You know, try to walk, walk us through like what, you know, we're, we're doing this audio, but like, what, what's the house look like and why'd you pick it?
Speaker: Well, let me pull up the, uh, let me pull up the Aki Amart listing. Right. Let's go.
Speaker: let's go Okay. I mean, honestly, dude, I'll tell you, like, um you know, i can't remember when I found Akemar, but ah it was it's it was a place that I've had three tabs open on every device for the past, let's going i don't know, like, year or so. It is central Kanazawa, but it's not next to, you know, it's not next to the Higashi Chaya or the Castle or any of that. But it's a 6LDK, so it's a pretty big. Pretty big. it's it's pretty huge the lot itself um is just a little bit little ways tucked off of the road it's off of a little walking path um which i like um it's recently renovated you know they put down it it's vinyl flooring um so it's not real hardwood but you know you have a couple of the downstairs uh has vinyl flooring you've got a couple of uh washitsu rooms upstairs with the um tatami looks at the photos are yeah tommy looks like they read the tatami it looks like they might have been like
Speaker: Have done the windows a little bit? Or are they... Yeah, there I think there are some double pane windows on there from what I remember from our from our walkthrough. There's a unit bath, which, you know, whatever. That is what it is. It's Japan. and but You know that either it's at least quality, right? I'm going to be able to use it and and not be tripping. There's a space you know tucked away where you can have a little office, which is important for us as well. Is is the hope here that you're going to be using it as like a vacation home couple months a year? Or you know what's what's yeah been discussed with the wife on the plan for the house?
Speaker: That's the thought, you know, that this would be our, it would be our base ah in Japan for for visiting. It would give it, and and for our friends too, you know, I think a lot of our friends are really interested in Japan, but they, you know, they say, i mean, especially I think European ah salaries that get in Japan, you know, it's impossible because the flights are expensive, even if it's cheap to to rent a yeah hotel or Airbnb, it's it's still um prohibitively expensive for a European salary. So, you know, giving ah a place for our friends to be able to go as well.
Speaker: um But, you know, we're looking at a couple of different things. Again, there is a cool little office um office space there that we feel like we can use um for something. You know, the idea being potentially um a midterm rental. ah There's ah did kind of growing digital nomad scene in in Kanazawa.
Speaker: ah So offering a place for somebody who could work you know a couple months a year, um doing that a couple times a year too would be pretty nice just to get a little bit of extra um money there on the side.
Speaker: and And then just a place for our family to create memories. and you know My kid has been and came with us right when we went to Japan and she loves it. And and you know that that to me is important.
Speaker: I don't think I traveled outside of the United States until I was... 18 years old and then i was going i was going to canada because i wanted to get i wanted to get drunk so giving giving my kid an opportunity to um to have a a lifestyle where she can she can be around people i mean she's already doing this but but you know being around people who speak a different language with a different culture um and and hopefully you know create memories at the same time um how how how old is this property is it like built in the 80s i think it's 80 probably right it's a 1956 um yeah so it does have uh you know i've heard eric's take on the aluminum siding or the not aluminum but you know the galvanized steel siding it it is one of those um but you know it looks like it's in really good condition it is a wood frame house it looks like looking' in good condition you someone's taking care of it obviously for the past whatever a couple years so mika had an agent come out um from nagano prefecture it was the closest person like mika's got people everywhere she's got a guy everywhere and ah you know he came out and he was saying that uh somebody had had been living here very recently and i can't remember if it was within the past couple months but at least within the past year taking care of it um
Speaker: you know But we're doing we're where we got the um we took the advice ah of Mika, and I think it's good advice from anybody for anything. We do this for every house we've owned, but to do an inspection as well. And so that's kind of where we're at in the process is waiting to hear back in the inspection. That's interesting. um I think me and Joey were talking about this, actually. The longer the house is abandoned, the bigger problem it is. so if you are buying an IKEA that was just...
Speaker: has been like two months vacant, that's like the one you want to go for. We've seen, we just went to one that was three years abandoned and we're just like, ah, geez, like even if this house was in such a good condition, like just nature takes over and and it just, they things break and mold. and And so, you know, I think that's great that someone, it looks like from the photos looking at now that someone was just there.
Speaker: Um, how much did you offer? You know, what was that process like? You know, did you think about going lower or, know, what what what's going through your head? We did. you know i'm I'm an American. so Let's go low low ballers, baby.
Speaker: right yeah i You can take the boy out of America, but no matter what, i at the end of the day, i French people will will always let me know that I'm American. Yeah. It is 5 million yen. So we offer, so yeah, 5 million yen, of course. I was like, no, that's such a low number, but that's where we are.
Speaker: with that 30,000? Yeah, we we offered four and um they counter offered million. um good yeah so that's like 28 000 um usd so yeah i mean think about it you get as you know it's a like a four-bedroom house uh for that much money in in honestly a city that i think more and more people are going to discover um to be really interesting i you know because i have been learning japanese i use these apps to try to like talk to random japanese people and like get my
Speaker: you know my uh my speaking up better and i talked to people recently i'm like what do you think about kanazawa they're like ishikawa prefecture is like my favorite place in japan kanazawa is like one of my favorite places to visit okay and you know my my japanese teacher uh she lives in osaka and she's like man my husband and i love to go up there that's like it's so pretty and you know so i think uh from the local perspective people love it and so i think uh that's ah That's a good sign too. Okay. So offer has been extended contingent of a home inspections, the home inspections going through. Did Mika give you a quote on how much that home inspection was going to be? Again, home inspections typically are $1,000 to $1,500 depending on location size. But what what do you know? Remember what?
Speaker: price range i want to i want to say and i could be wrong um but i want to say it was about 150 000 yen okay so about a thousand dollars about a thousand yeah yeah you'll get a 40 50 page paper back but just know that it's not bulletproof we've had customers go through this home inspection specifically through a company called sakura but sakura is like a big chain so it depends on person to person but they have missed termite damage before which sucks so that being said this is like all we can do yeah from our perspective even if there is termite damage we've helped a lot of customers actually get rid of termites and it it seems like it's actually not as bad as it is here in the states at least if you have termites do people like tented spot treatment doesn't work but for some reason japan it seems like they have a they're very familiar with the problem so it's not a too unique of a problem i guess amongst these houses that and and they're quite familiar on how to fix it but
Speaker: right, Devin, this is exciting. So offer is out there. We're waiting for it to be officially accepted. i think you offer was yesterday, two days ago. ah Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yesterday. Yesterday. Okay. I don't foresee this not being accepted. if they This is their counter offer, right?
Speaker: Yep. Okay. um you know if If the inspection comes back and shows major structural foundation problems, we will probably regroup. no i mean i'll be honest like that's we we're trying to we're trying to play this as conservative as possible because you know it's still it's $30,000 right you know and uh and there are plenty of other places uh i think you might have folks might have heard uh on this website called akia mart that there's nine million empty homes uh in japan so more now Maybe more. If this one doesn't work out, then so be it. There's other ones out there. But, you know, were we're crossing fingers that that's not the case. Okay. So just so, you know, and I guess for for listeners after your offer is accepted, the next step is we typically make a contract. So this is where it officially is like a legally binding thing.
Speaker: where you will be sending over around 10% down payment. This 10% down payment, we you recommend using Wise. Wise probably the best way to transfer. Each country has its own limits. So um our advice, I'm just going to tell you, Devin's like, get your stuff ready sooner than later, load it up in Wise, send it over early.
Speaker: um Our agents do act kind of as an escrow. Japan doesn't use an escrow service. So you do have to trust us. I know it's a little scary, but our our agents are all legit. Mika, hopefully has been good to you um through the process.
Speaker: And after contract is made, we then moved, takes like two to three weeks to get to settlement. Settlement is where you pay the rest of the cash. We start doing the title transfer deed and all this stuff.
Speaker: The one wild card here is Kanazawa is still pretty Yenaka, I would say. So sometimes the seller side could be weird about stuff. They could be really old school about making the documents or they want us to fax stuff. So just know there could be a little bit of X factor here.
Speaker: That being said, you know it seems like the seller's agent has been pretty not too hard to work with. They seemed amenable to your your lowball offer. um So you offered, what, 20% under and they came back with $4.3 million. So take that $700,000 and let's go party somewhere.
Speaker: as far as as our experience has gone, because this is not the first house we have tried to buy in Japan. um you know we try to We actually did find one on one of the islands in the Seto, which you see, and it didn't work out. um you know they They just didn't want to deal with working with a foreign buyer. you know And that's that's it that is what it is. I don't blame them for that.
Speaker: ah But ah these this house, we weren't the only foreigners looking at it. Oh, that's right. so This is the, okay. Akiamar might be on. So another another pro tip for Akiamar direct, i I guess, customers, we are able to maybe hide the listing. So Devin, at this point, this this listing is pretty much yours. I don't think someone is going to come in.
Speaker: you you You put it in first. um So I won't be, but like we, we, for Aki Mart direct customers, Hey, we can help you buy Aki in Japan. We do have a couple of advantages and and tricks up our sleeve to kind of make sure you do get the listing, but think you're good to go here.
Speaker: ah Devin, any any questions actually on on what's to come here or any any concerns or any tips to the to the listeners? Well, I will say you mentioned Wyze and I know that if you haven't used it before, it can be kind of scary.
Speaker: and But um I moved to France using Wyze and this is bigger sums of money than you know than what we're talking about for buying an Akia. um And by the way, I'm getting the whole community here in Nantes on board with investing in Japan too. um But, ah you know, it's very secure. i mean, it is a real financial institution.
Speaker: ah you have a real U.S. bank essentially tied to it. a real um I have a real European bank. I think the one that they use for JPY conversion is is in the U.K. for some reason.
Speaker: But, um you know, it it is solid. It works really well. I've sent a decent amount of money through wise and it happens almost instantaneously. So um that would be my big tip to folks is like that. ah It is very, very trustworthy and people have been using it to move overseas for several years now.
Speaker: It still trips up once in a while. So I think wise is great, but also just like time doing stuff earlier, or not procrastinating is the best thing to do. So like once your offers, I would say start making sure that the rails are there this isn't your first wide payment it probably works so well for you Devin because you interacted with it quote for quite some time but if you're listening to this you have you know you're gonna start buying the make the wise account go and just transfer test transfers around to make sure you feel good and you you understand it it doesn't take too long to understand the the UI is really good but it it it can be tricky and little intimidating as Devin said
Speaker: To add on to that, Take, I will say that um I know for U.S. and European wise accounts, they are interest bearing accounts or they're they're potentially interest bearing accounts, too.
Speaker: So um you can hold money in there. i think, you you know, it's a four percent APY in the U.S. and like one point two five or something in Europe.
Speaker: um So worst case scenario, too, you can put money in there and make a little bit about of cash back while you're waiting. Heck yeah. ah Very last note, there seems to be a wave of French people wanting to buy in Japan recently. Maybe that's attributed to you, Devin. We got to open up that segment. How's your French? Pretty good?
Speaker: It's good enough for me to be able to work in a French office. So it's... ah Yeah. And I will say, um for some reason, they love Japan. Not a lot of Japanese people in France, but love Japan.
Speaker: French people love Dragon Ball Z. French people love Gundams. French people love the Japanese RPGs, I feel like, or video game. Oh, yeah. It's the number two manga consumer in the world behind Japan. Really?
Speaker: What? Yeah. Well, not the United States. I read so much manga. No. Okay. French people are doing it. Yeah. Let's go France. So, yeah, I mean, again, this is Devin is a perfect case study in some degrees of, of someone being proactive and just reaching out to us and starting to work with us. so again, if you're interested in working with us, let us know Devin, I think after we have you go through this purchase process,
Speaker: would like you to be maybe a consultant and help other French people across the finish line. Cause again, i can't speak French and you know, you can. And so I, and there's, let's get those, uh, the number two manga consumption nation in the world to help buy them some Akiis. So, uh,
Speaker: Devin, thank you for being on the show. We fingers crossed everyone that I think the next time we record, you will hopefully have keys in hand. But um if you haven't liked the podcast, it supports me and Devin here. Smash that like button now. And Devin, thanks for being on the show.
Speaker: Thanks for listening to this week's episode of Buying a House in Japan. If you find the show helpful or at least entertaining, give us a five-star rating. Takes five seconds and really goes a long way. If you or someone you know is looking for a Japanese home, check out Akiyamart.com, our English-friendly site that lets you browse over half a million listings. That's A-K-I-Y-A-M-A-R-T.com to find your dream home in Japan.
Speaker: If you've got questions or feedback, drop us a line, email contact at 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.
