Transcript
Speaker: Um, are we getting a breath espresso machine? Are we, I think we're getting, I think we got to get the gravel. I've got the, we got pour over game and bet. I got the pour over game here now too, but Breville is the missing piece for me. Can we also make this a business expense or not? That's, I think so. Do you think so? Like coffee machine. That's an office expense. Is it totally coffee machine?
Speaker: Welcome back to the buying a house in Japan podcast. I'm your host Joey joined by my co -host target. Last week we left everybody off on a cliffhanger. What happened? We made an offer on a house in Tokyo. Can you give us a little bit of a background on that house again? What were the pros and cons?
Speaker: Pros and cons. Pros, pretty dope spot. It's like 2 ,500 square feet in Japan. That's a huge plot of land. It was recently renovated, quote unquote, maybe lipstick on a pig has a parking spot, which we found out it's pretty large from the photos. It looks small. It's also next to a US military golf course. So we might be getting good at golfing soon. Cons though, it's really far away from Tokyo, central Tokyo, like an hour away, I'd say.
Speaker: What are the cons? Nothing still technically Tokyo, maybe some cracks. Like we had a friend go there to check it out as well. In addition to the real estate agent, some cracks, maybe like around the garage area. That's like a concrete kind of looking thing, but other than that, but is an old building. They did do a renovation.
Speaker: We don't know truly what the bones look like. As we mentioned before, we weren't able to do a building inspection. The seller side didn't allow that a little bit scummy. A little bit scummy. Yeah. I'm not sure if we mentioned last time, but yeah, we put the offer in. Again, Joey mentioned it right there, but they did not let us put in the home inspection, which is usually our bargaining tool, which is what we did for the last Crowlux, which didn't work out well.
Speaker: Yeah, that was our strategy, didn't work. Actually, so I was thinking about this earlier today. One of the interesting things that we learned with this process, I've been reading threads on the internet about the US home market, and you always hear people getting outbid, someone like, oh, I got out my rats. I got outbid on this property.
Speaker: the person that got outbid even offered over asking so we tried that actually so someone else had made an offer i think i don't know if the offer was accepted but they hadn't signed or done anything yet. We talked to our real estate agent and we said hey what if we offer over asking price wasn't by too much more i don't remember the specifics it was like.
Speaker: 17 .8 million and we said, oh, let's just bump it up to 18, to clean 18 million or something like that. Let's try the American tactic of offering over asking. And it didn't work. I think the seller's agent said, no, we can't do it there. We got to go in order or something like that. So that is interesting to hear, especially from the seller side agent being a little bit scummy to begin with. Just the fact that they didn't immediately jump at the higher price, but they're like, no, we have a, we have an order and we must respect the order.
Speaker: To be fair on the Japanese real estate agent side, though, like they definitely knew. So like the house is old already. They did a remodel. Of course, there's going to be something wrong with it. And they think they knew that. But we could be walking into a lemon, Joey. We actually maybe, should we do a home inspection? We'll talk about it later. But yeah, we could be walking to lemon. We, to Joey's point, it's just the real estate market is not as bidding war prone, I'd say here, at least in this market that we're looking at. So.
Speaker: Joey, we, what happened basically? We had someone else was in front of us. We tried a bit higher.
Speaker: Um, things were looking bleak, right? Yeah. We tried to bid higher. So sellers agent said, no, we have this order. We must respect the order. But it came down to our real estate agent. Yoshi said that, okay, they're going to be signing Sunday. And he was like, there is a slight chance it doesn't work, but maybe we should start looking at other properties is what he told us. He was like, sorry about this one, guys. I was excited to apologize about this. And we're like, it's okay. Yoshi it's fine.
Speaker: Yeah, cute. On to the next one. I remember you had started looking at some other properties. We did find some other cool ones, but Sunday comes around. This was last, just last Sunday, Sunday comes around and we get a text from Yoshi saying the buyer who was in front of us in this, in, in line couldn't get their mortgage approved. So I guess last minute the bank said, no, we're not going to prove their mortgage. And so they had to pull out.
Speaker: So yeah, so we are next in line and now we're just doing all trying to get the deposit over there. A little bit of herding cats a little bit with a few different, just different entities involved to actually get the money to the seller. So we're right in the middle of that and trying to just coordinate with a few different parties to have everybody in line. And we're doing this remotely. So.
Speaker: It is a little bit of a project management. I think you called it project management or something earlier today. emails and texts back and forth, just organizing. Before that, yo, we got our offer accepted. Let's go. That's such good news, right? We have a house in Tokyo maybe. Yeah. Time to celebrate. Time to celebrate. With a yard, we can have a sauna there. We can have plenty of space. Yeah. Yeah. Plenty of space.
Speaker: Um, again, it's, it's far away. I don't think people are going to visit us, but I don't know if you're listening to this and you're in Tokyo and we have this place set up, I don't know. Hopefully we'll have a pizza oven. Hopefully we'll have, Oh no, actually the biggest pro I totally forgot. We're 20 minutes away from Costco. Costco is my favorite store in the world, dude. Japanese Costco is pretty good too. I've been to this time on one before. I remember we like, when we were at ICU, rented a car and we went there once. I think maybe Neil came with me.
Speaker: I was looking at like a YouTube video yesterday of the selection. Yo, the sashimi game, the quality fish game in this Costco is so high. I'm excited. Between that and kababashi, we will get some good knives.
Speaker: We have a car. Yeah, we're going to have a car. We got a garage or set, I would say. And the only thing is like a little bit far from downtown Tokyo, but I think it's manageable. If we get a bicycle, then it's only 15 minutes to our train station. And then if you can line it up with the limited express train half an hour to Shinjuku, so
Speaker: manageable, a little bit more planning involved to not spend an hour and a half commuting, but manageable.
Speaker: Yeah, so for anyone who's just listening now, the steps where we identified this place, we found on Akiomart .com. Take a look. We then used our real estate agent Yoshi and submitted an offer. He submitted the offer and it got accepted. So the next direct step for us is to find a way to transfer this. Actually we already did, but there's a 10 % deposit. So we're paying about 15, 1 .5 million, which is like eight, what is that? Like close to 10 ,000 US dollars.
Speaker: What we're now doing is coordinating the signing of the contract. So we've already sent the $10 ,000 to our Japanese bank account, which was a little bit hard. We'll describe that in a second. The next step is now we're coordinating
Speaker: with our Japanese business representative who's on our company to sign on our behalf and pay that $10 ,000. This seems to be a really weirdly manual thing. There's no escrow. It sounds like it all needs to happen the same day, Joey.
Speaker: Yeah. So we, I don't understand the reason, but it did seem from a real estate agent that once we sign some document for the deposit, like the deposit needs to happen right away. Like it can't wait a day or anything like that. It has to happen right then. So we could bring cash cash. Who's that real estate agent in bet. We said that too. And we talked bits of dicos on. Yeah. I remember they, they told us that too. Yeah. You can buy a house in cash.
Speaker: Yeah. If you're doing this for the first time, just know the transaction process of sending the money was one hurdle that we actually preemptively did. So I sent the money May 13th and we just got noticed. It hit the bank account like two days ago. Funny story. Yeah. How do we receive the mail? How do we receive the notice, Joey? I got the money. So normally, and even the normal state of affairs is pretty crazy, which is you get a call from the bank.
Speaker: Notifying you of a deposit and then they ask a bunch of scrutinizing questions, making sure that it's not, you're not involved with money laundering or whatever.
Speaker: But this time around, we apparently, we got a physical letter. Our accountant, it was sent to our accountant, but the bank sent him a physical letter 10 days after our deposit saying, yep, your deposit was received in the bank account. No, we don't have online banking. We don't have a debit card. We have no transparency into our bank account. We just sent $10 ,000 over and 10 days later, we got a letter, a snail mail saying that our deposit was received.
Speaker: Like what the actual F dude, this is such a weird for anyone thinking Japan's like tech Ford. This is a clear, I don't know, a clear example that.
Speaker: it is not. At least the banking side. I think we mentioned it last time, but the banking side again, a big hurdle is just to get approved for a bank account. We did get that approval and that seemed to go, was pretty streamlined, but I think that process took maybe a month and a half just to get approved for the bank account.
Speaker: And now we need to apply for online banking, which we heard from our accountant the other day that it might be another two weeks until we get approved for online banking. But we still, we still need to apply for the debit card. We still need to apply for the credit card. It's like all these things until you have some semblance of normal banking flow. And even then every single deposit, it feels like not, no matter what.
Speaker: dollar amount you're depositing, there's going to be some sort of money laundering check that they do. Usually like a, you'll get a phone call maybe a few days after the deposit and where they're asking you questions. And at the moment we don't have a Japanese phone number. And I believe this conversation is going to be in Japanese. So someday we'll try to take this on ourselves, but it's just, yeah, one hurdle after another to get a Japanese bank account.
Speaker: Yeah. So many steps. And again, if you're listening to this and you're doing the same thing, it's going to take longer than you think. So basically we got our money in our US bank account. We used OFX to convert it to US dollar to Japanese yen. It hit our Japanese bank account. It took about 10 days to get it confirmation that it was there. We were freaking out a little bit. We were like, where's our money? Our real estate agent was like, hey, we need the deposit soon. And I was like, oh shit, how are we going to get the money there, Joey?
Speaker: Good thing we preemptively did that. We actually had a good, the rate's actually better now. We, when we transferred it, it was 152. Joey, it's actually 155 on OFX now. So we should consider maybe doing a bulk transfer soon.
Speaker: Yeah, that's how, so if you look at the, if anyone else is using OFX to transfer money, OFX makes its money. So there is like a little thing for fees, but I don't think I've ever seen like a flat fee that we've paid, but they make their money off the exchange rate. So whatever the exchange rate is, they offer you slightly worse exchange rate, and then that's how they skim a little bit off the top.
Speaker: So our next steps is hopefully our business partner in Japan is going to meet with our Japanese real estate agent Yoshi and the sellers. And he is going to sign on our behalf with our company. So we're purchasing this under our company, which I think makes things a little easier, maybe.
Speaker: and that we don't need power attorney. So hopefully it's all going to be settled by next week and the contract will be signed. But we're currently, Joey specifically has written out a nice message. It's hurting cats to say the least. Yeah, a little bit like hurting cats. So it was a, yeah. So we just introduced a real estate agent and accountant the other day on a WhatsApp channel. And now we're trying to like, we thought that they might be able to coordinate better between the two of them, but I think it is going to take a little bit of
Speaker: All right, a project management. So I'm trying to step in a little bit and manage the communication, make sure that we're all on the same page because we don't want there to be any issues on the day that any of these things need to happen. I'd rather iron out the issues ahead of time and make sure they're ironed out. Totally. I feel like we got to get things right. And I feel like Japanese business is quite serious. I don't want to offend. I don't think the seller could pull out at this point or they, I don't think they would, but
Speaker: I don't want to jeopardize anything with miscommunication on our end. So we're going to go to Japan, Joey. We have a house in Tokyo coming up. We're planning to go last week at June. So June 25th ish. Our goal is I think that I'm going to be there for a week. I think, Joey, you're planning to be there a little bit longer, right? Yeah, maybe a couple of weeks. So we are now going from, we think we have a turnkey house.
Speaker: How do we furnish it and live in it as soon as possible is the current mission, right?
Speaker: that that's
Speaker: that's
Speaker: think to themselves, no one lives here. Why am I dropping a package here? So yeah, a few things you need to do just to make sure that your Amazon packages gets delivered in your absence.
Speaker: Okay, so one, we got to figure that out. Two, there currently isn't any, there's only one air conditioning unit. We're going in like end of June, bro. It's going to be so hot. Does one AC, we might be sleeping in that room. Let's see if we can, I like, I say we over index on getting ACs in there, but I also feel like that might need an electrical upgrade.
Speaker: Let's see if we can, I don't know when it's too soon to do it, but ideally we step in there and there's an AC in every room. Cause I don't, I hate Japanese heat. It might not need an electrical upgrade in the sense that I think they could probably just install it. I think there are plugs like in most rooms for an AC, but you, the issue will come down. If you're trying to run them all at the same time, then like the main breaker might flip.
Speaker: Okay. Tokyo weather end of June. Oh, it doesn't look too bad. 26 high 19 low. Yeah. Andy said we had a friend visit the property. And I remember just a few days ago, I remember we asked somebody, yeah. What did he say? He said it was 70. That sounded nice. Okay. That's not too bad. Maybe we're fine. We also need to get internet. All right. Let's get like the fastest internet we can. I don't know if how to set that up. We also got to work with Yoshi on utilities. Can he do the utilities for us?
Speaker: Yeah, we can try. Yeah. So Yoshi add value. They can do utilities. Yes. I confirm that. We also, there's another, just if anyone else is listening, there's another service based out of Fukuoka, but I did confirm that they can handle nationwide that specifically sets up utilities for foreign homeowners. They also pick up your mail, translate it, scan it and send it to you as well. So if a mailmates .jp, that's another option for us as well. We'll figure that out though.
Speaker: We really got to write. What do we need here? I think we're planning to land in Tokyo and maybe stay the first night. That didn't say if we get the Amazon going, if we do a test Amazon package and it gets delivered, then I think it's send, send it. I'm not worried about packages getting stolen, but I think we get off at least mattresses and sheets. Yeah. Get off the plane.
Speaker: go straight there, unbox a whole bunch of Amazon stuff, sleep. The sheets aren't even gonna be clean though. We gotta get a washer dryer too, right? Yeah, so maybe we get a hotel for one night, and especially if, I can't remember what, Jory Land? Yeah, we were trying to coordinate with a friend too, maybe to do some filming. I remember him mentioning there was one specific day he can't do around that time.
Speaker: Yeah, let's maybe do the 25th or 26. We'll figure out the timing, but let's talk about fun stuff, Joey. What are we going to buy? What are your top picks? Give me your top. I like the bed frame that I got in Bepu. I think I'm going to get the same one again. Same mattress, same sheets. I like that setup. Let's do the exact, I like your setup, but your mattress was way better or your frame was much better, but overall our like. We're the same mattress. Your entire mattress sheet setup. That was great.
Speaker: What was that brand again? You use it in your Airbnb's, don't you? Just, I use the cheapest one. People like on Airbnb or it's like, Hey, what matches to use is really comfortable. Yeah. I think it's great. The cheapest one on Amazon. I also think it's great though. Yeah. It's replaced. All right. Fun stuff. Okay. Breville. If anybody listening knows anything about coffee machines in Tokyo, they look a little pricey. Um, but the alternative is bringing it from America. We need a whole separate suitcase for it. Maybe not something we want to do.
Speaker: It would be on you, Taki, to do that. So I'm flying to Hawaii. Let's see. I guess I could ship it to Hawaii. Actually, it would save us sales tax. But if you want, I can do it, but I'm not going to bring anything. I'm going to bring a suitcase and a Breville box, basically. I don't know. Maybe we just buy from Amazon.
Speaker: But it's going to be so satisfying, that first espresso shot we have in the house where it's cold and think about it. Cold espresso? Sorry, it's going to be cold in the room with our AC. That's the dream. We have maybe some chair, minimal furniture, sip in this espresso shot. All right. Another fun purchase. I want to see how you react to this.
Speaker: That is it. The rug that we got in the children and Beppu. What do you think that real plush one? Oh, a hundred percent. I would almost say our houses, it seems like they took out the Tatami and they put in some kind of final floating. Yeah. Don't love that. I actually want to see if we can switch back to Tatami, but, uh, yeah, let's get, I think that was pretty cheap. I feel like that was an MVP by that was like, at least we're getting from V zero to V one kind of thing. I'd much rather sit on that than the hardwood floor.
Speaker: Yeah, it depends. So we eventually want to have a low room. So the room that we call the chill room and the Beppu house, it's a low couch. We got from Nitori, this really plush like memory foam carpet. We were on the fence about it at first, but I think it's a great buy in the end. Like a low coffee table thing. Do we want to have one of those low rooms in this house?
Speaker: Yeah, let's talk about that. Again, we're going from to V0 here. Let's see, I think beds we need to figure out. Generally, I think a washing machine, we should figure that out. Refrigerator. I would like a nice sound system or stereo. We could probably go to a used store and figure that out. But Sana is my top vote if we can find a way to do it. I looked at, I think I was just looking at the, I can't remember the prices. I remember I was looking at the, some website the other day.
Speaker: Costco sauna barrels, I believe. Barrel sauna. Yeah, I think, okay. They have, we can find one. I think it might be expensive, but I do think it's worth it. I know Yuji knows someone who makes sauna, so maybe you can convince him, but what else do we need? Let me think. Yeah. So it's going to be nice to do laundry there. The bat, we have a unit shower room thing, which is nice. We don't really need that bathtub. I don't think, but whatever we've got it for now.
Speaker: I think we got to get some sweet knives from Kapabashi do some cooking. Yep. Yeah. There's a good knife store there. A few actually many Tokyo base camp going to be a lot of cooking. I actually prefer that. I feel like when I go to Japan, I just go out and eat and get real fat. I feel like us cooking at home is like better portion control, cheaper Costco. I'm stoked.
Speaker: the right
Speaker: Yeah, let's furnish for anyone listening. Japan is like a really good reuse recycle shop kind of culture. I think we could get most of the stuff we need there, but lighting, we got to go to Nitori. Just get that. We're going to walk in and it's going to be all like fluorescent blue light, which is going to be gross. Yeah. And it's all, it's all on the ceiling fluorescent kind of lights. Yeah, not good. Should we do a home inspection? Do we want to know what's fucked up at this point?
Speaker: We can always do one later. I don't know. Maybe, maybe we should know. Should. We should know. We, what in the contract, like if we did a home inspection now, could we back out? I guess we lose her deposit. They did say something like, if you're not going to make an offer, then don't do the home inspection or something like that. I don't know. I guess it's a question for Yoshi. If we like when we want to do it, Yoshi's a real estate agent.
Speaker: Okay. Cool, man. We got a house. I think we're going to, I'm going to try to push us to do more of these podcasts just to document like every single step here. But for now, it's been pretty smooth. It sounds like we're going to get keys within a couple of weeks, which is a very different than our previous experience. It might be because we have a business in Japan now, but things are moving fast. Yeah. It might be Tokyo. It might be that now this is basically double the price of our other house. So it could be a few different reasons why the pace is faster.
Speaker: We just bought a turn key house in Tokyo for $115 ,000 Joey. Congratulations. Congrats to us. We did it. All right. Cool. We'll do another episode next week. Excited to keep you guys up to date. Hopefully this deal does not fall through, but for now, fingers crossed our accountant and our real estate agent can meet up and transfer this money so we can get our deposit in there. All right. See you later.
