Transcript
Speaker: Welcome back, everybody. We have a returning guest today. It's not too often we get a returning guest, but please, everybody, Take, welcome Nick Wolsey from Japan Remotely. Nick, this is your second time on the podcast, is it not?
Speaker: It is. Thanks for welcoming me back, guys. You look like a new person, though. You do look like a new person. Yeah. I haven't started including this new image in my reels yet, but for those who can't see Rockin' a Beard now...
Speaker: Just a really quick intro and then I'll hand it over to you, Nick, for your own personal intro. But Nick is the go to guy for everything immigration to Japan. He takes his business. Japan remotely takes a holistic view of everything you're looking to do when relocating and moving to Japan.
Speaker: And he's a source of wisdom for all things visa related. Nick, is that how you would describe your business? Yeah, that's exactly right. a holistic view of what it is you're trying to accomplish in Japan, and then working backwards from there, the steps that you would need to take to accomplish them.
Speaker: I've worked with hundreds of people now, figuring out their vision, answering their questions. um And then what I do is, once we figure out the path,
Speaker: I connect them with an immigration lawyer in Japan that best fits the path that they're wanting to go down. I've got some great ones on the real estate side, people doing the startup visa, expert in the artist visa.
Speaker: I try to match those experts with what people are doing. Right on. Artist visa is cool, actually. It's something that we've never, i don't think we've ever talked about it on the podcast, but we were just speaking to someone earlier today who's starting up an artist residency in Japan.
Speaker: Do you know what, just off the top of your head, could I just claim to be an artist or like what what do you have to do is an artist to get the artist visa? You have to be published for sure.
Speaker: And the more famous you are in being published, you know, the better. The other thing is that it's a little bit like a work visa and that you have to have a sponsor.
Speaker: ah So it's a little complicated because you can't go on like indeed.com and look for artist visa sponsor. You kind of have to be in the scene, have people, you know, somebody that's maybe, you know, doing a residence and invites you that kind of thing. Could it be,
Speaker: Just one more question on that. Say I'm really into blacksmithing. Can we like bend the rules of of what, like, like, is it, is it fluid? Like is, is what constitutes your art?
Speaker: Can it be fluid in terms of like almost a trade? don't know if blacksmithing used to be a trade, but like. it kind depends on if you want to make money with it or not. When you say blacksmithing,
Speaker: I feel like what jumps to my mind right away is the cultural visa, which is kind of like a sister of a student visa. you would You would have like an apprenticeship that you would go and study, but then, you know, you could work 28 hours a week.
Speaker: But with the artist visa, maybe if you were like a blacksmith from like Norway or something that knew how to make like Viking stuff and they wanted to do like some sort of Viking display and that like Tokyo Metropolitan Art or something like that, then maybe, yeah, that could work.
Speaker: Then you might have a chance. Great. Well, just backing up a second, Nick, it's been. months since we last talked to you. I think a lot of things have changed in your personal life as well. which Could you like catch us up on the last six months? Sounds like your business has grown an incredible amount, hundreds of customers. And your beard. for you Yeah, and your beard.
Speaker: Yeah. You know, Japan or remotely has been going really well. Every time I talk to somebody, it's really fun to hear how they make money. That's one of the things I like to hear the most. There's so many different stories from like, ah you know, being an IT consultant to to having a real estate portfolio to being an OnlyFans star.
Speaker: There's all kinds of ways that people make money these days. My wife told me about one the other day. It's not a client, but apparently there's only fans for feet and you just show your feet and people give you money.
Speaker: But ah these wait these are people trying to move to Japan. No, this is just one that one new way that maybe Gen Z has figured out how to have a side hustle on.
Speaker: But I have had a couple in the like adult entertainment space, but i don't know I don't know what kind of performance they did. I didn't ask, but you know that's that's up to them. And I take it totally professionally. and So what visa do you recommend?
Speaker: But for them they were ah trying to get out of the industry and kind of reinvent themselves. It is hard to get ah visa if you explicitly want to be and adult entertainment. See, that was a pun there. I didn't intend.
Speaker: But, you know, there's a lot of laws about that. And then most visas don't apply. One possible is to be a spouse of somebody or a permanent resident. um Then if you have, you know, the license ah to do that, up to you. but Most like working visas or entertainment visas, things like that specifically exclude that industry.
Speaker: So Nick, are you, heard, are you moving to Japan? Or where are you right now? And what's what's what's been happening? So right now, I'm the Pacific Northwest and been here for about five years.
Speaker: Going through some changes in my personal life. The economy of the United States has been rocky for a lot of people, including my family. Both myself and my wife were laid off in the last six months.
Speaker: Um, so right now, honestly, anything's on the table. We're taking, off again, I'm almost my own client here, taking a holistic view of what we want to do and what the options are. Um, you know, there's a lot of good things about where we're at now. I've got a family here, which is just wonderful.
Speaker: Um, But the cash burn man in the States is so fast, especially with, we've got a four or five person family, depending on how you look at it.
Speaker: And, you know, it's, we We were lucky and um you know had some savings, but it it'll go quickly. So we need to come to a decision about how best to spend the next 6-12 months burning through that and be strategic about what the next steps are.
Speaker: Yes. So I heard a rumor you're looking at Fukuoka to move to. i like Fukuoka a lot as well. Every time I've been there, I've had a lot of fun. Why why did you pick Fukuoka?
Speaker: So... I think I'm looking closely at Fukuoka because my clients are looking at Fukuoka. It's one of the places they bring up often. And, you know, as, uh, you know, the head of Japan remotely,
Speaker: having a presence in a place where my clients are interested in going to would make sense. And the other nice thing about Fukuoka is that it's considerably cheaper than tokyo or Osaka.
Speaker: Real estate prices there are going up quite a bit. I don't know if we'll be able to like buy something if we did move. But rent there is is is really pretty cheap.
Speaker: For three-bedroom, fairly central, it's about $1,200 month. So just amazing compared to you know what you can find around here. we We thought about, well, we could downsize and sell the house and go rent. But shoot, even semi-rural Washington for two-bedroom apartment, it's going to be $3,500, $4,000 month.
Speaker: So that doesn't really get us anywhere. So I've looked at crazy ideas. Like I asked chat GPT the other day, where is the cheapest place in the United States to buy a house and have good schools?
Speaker: And apparently the answer is Huntington, West Virginia. so boy. Yeah. Yeah, well, I mean, just yeah looking at the whole picture, it is a possibility.
Speaker: i work remotely. It could be done. West Coast would be better if we did stay in the States. But apparently in Huntington, West Virginia, it's a little pocket of like universities and research centers.
Speaker: So the political climate and the schools there are a little bit closer to what we're used to. Mm-hmm. But you can buy a house there for like $150,000 and it'd be like somewhat of a fixer-upper, but not like a dump. Whereas, you know, we looked at at North Carolina, at Indianapolis.
Speaker: Indianapolis, I hear, is is really going nuts right now. budy But there are still, you know, it would be around minimum $300,000 to get a house for for the family.
Speaker: You know, even including interest rates on mortgages, i feel like, yeah, I'm in the same boat in California and just like can't can't afford anything, right which is why i think so many people are are looking at Japan, potentially Fukuoka.
Speaker: Yeah, and Fukuoka is also nice because it has an airport that's right downtown, a bit like Kaneda. And from there, it it has quite a few international destinations, including to Hawaii.
Speaker: And you can go from Fukuoka to Hawaii to Portland. It was just that one stop. So um if I wanted to, that would be one way to come back and forth.
Speaker: Hawaiian Airlines. just flew back from Hawaii yesterday, and I actually met a couple folks who are actually considering Fukuoka for that reason. So a lot of folks on in in Honolulu, I know. have to up my marketing game in Hawaii and go on some. I've been telling Joey, we're going to do an in-person event in Hawaii pretty soon. We should. we we We're going to try to do it go in September, but...
Speaker: sided against it but let's rethink that I think we're here we come
Speaker: Anyways, Nick, the reason we brought you on today is to discuss some hot off the press changes for the business manager visa. I think this is one of the probably more common visas that I think we are us ourselves were thinking about other people that were helping the purchase process are thinking about. But just to set the stage, can you kind of talk a little bit about what was the business manager visa before these changes?
Speaker: And yeah, what's what's changing? Yeah. So the business manager visa is, was a really great option for anybody starting a business to move to Japan.
Speaker: It's quite broad in what you're allowed to do. Adult entertainment is not one of them, ah the hook but pretty much anything you can think of that you could start a business in Japan for, um you could do.
Speaker: at To get approved, it certainly helps to have some experience. um You would need to write a business plan with a three-year financial forecast that shows you know this is a real thing and talk about the target market you're going to serve and and how long it's going to take to get profitability and and all that stuff.
Speaker: But I think the key thing that was amazing is that It was ah very low cost ah business visa compared to other options around the world.
Speaker: It was 5 million yen initial investment to your company. So that money is not gone. um It's in your business bank account and you'd need to open up an entity in Japan. There's a few different types.
Speaker: And then you would need to have a physical place to do that business. And once you've got all that set up, you could apply and then that visa is a gateway to permanent residency.
Speaker: If things go well and you get approved for a multi-year term, at the end of that term, you could then apply but permanent residency. So...
Speaker: And my view, it was a really great kind of halfway to a retirement visa because you could start up kind of a low-key business, something that you like doing, maybe like you know what we worked on all the time, helping people with short-term rentals in rural. areas, slow the cash burn, help foreigners and Japanese enjoy parts of Japan that they wouldn't have otherwise gone to.
Speaker: a lot of my clients are, you know, millennials or or Gen Z and know a lot about marketing and want and really passionate about going to these places and promoting parts of Japan that nobody's ever even heard of.
Speaker: um A lot of creative people were interested in it too. You know, we talked a little bit about the artist visa. One workaround that I've dealt with my customers before is instead of getting an artist visa, what if you start a business to promote and sell art?
Speaker: And that was a viable option because right now 5 million yen is only about 30, $35,000. thirty thirty five thousand dollars so for the price of selling your car in the United States, you could have had and enough money to at least get in the door to start a business.
Speaker: Damn, my car is not worth $35,000, unfortunately. Oh, got too many miles. Yeah. What kind of do you drive? 30, 31 years old, 94 4Runner.
Speaker: so Selling it soon. Selling it soon. Or sale. But, yes. Okay, sorry. Sorry to interrupt you, Nick. But there were some bad news question mark recently, right? New news.
Speaker: Yeah, I would for for our kind of clients, you know, my business is all about helping us, especially new people understand the process of moving to Japan and and figure out what options there are available.
Speaker: One option for regular middle class people is kind of getting taken off the table. So For our audience, I would classify it as bad news.
Speaker: Bad news. Basically, the 5 million yen requirement is being multiplied by six. And now the new initial investment is going to be 30 million yen, which is about 200,000 US dollars today.
Speaker: i was waiting for that. That's perfect. um And that's not all. Wait, there's more. You also have to have at least one local Japanese permanent resident or someone not on like a limited visa.
Speaker: ah Spouse visa could be okay. but one local employee that you hire as full time. So min this is um sorry, that's not a rep representative director. No, I was a representative director. This is an employee. okay Yeah, an employee.
Speaker: So you must have one employee and. Luckily, salaries in Japan are not super high. So at around a minimum of three million yen a year, you could get yourself like office administrator, somebody who handles bilingual stuff if you need.
Speaker: um And, you know, that roughly translates to about 20,000 a year that you'd have to budget for that. Oof. Yeah. On top of like, we all know how long it takes to get an entity set up and banking accounts and like, yeah, this is not something you can casually do anymore.
Speaker: No, that's exactly what it is. And maybe that's part of the point is they don't want people to casually and start a business anymore.
Speaker: Now, but like we talked about earlier, artists or potters or people starting, i don't know, boat tours of Iwo Jima or something like that.
Speaker: These type of low revenue, creative businesses are going to be much harder to sustain. And I think for some people, you know, especially those kind of towards the end of their careers or seeking an exit.
Speaker: The $200,000 mark isn't so bad. I mean, it's not terrible. I think actually what's harder, going to be harder on businesses, especially new ones, like I have a lot of clients who want to exit corporate America and kind of reinvent themselves.
Speaker: The new operating financial threshold when you you have to include your own salary and set that at least 3 million yen. And now you have to include another person's salary at 3 million yen.
Speaker: So you have to get at least over 6 million yen or around 45, $50,000 in order to get profitable in Japan.
Speaker: And that's not including, like we talked about, office space or you're going to need an accountant. It's going to be hard for a small business, even if they had the working the initial capital, to get to the point where they're in the black and get that visa renewed.
Speaker: Now, I understand why the change is coming. And I think from the perspective of of Japan, you know they want... If you're going to start a business in Japan, they want people to to make local jobs. I get it.
Speaker: um Could you elaborate on that a little bit, actually? Like, why why did this... I heard the news, but I haven't read too deeply into it. Like, why did this? And around the Sanseito boom as well, like, do you believe it's tied into that political ah winds shifting in Japan as well?
Speaker: I'm not the world's best political analyst, but what I can say is that there were some very high profile cases of visa abuse.
Speaker: Um, Those also led to widespread knowledge of people wanting to make kind of more low-impact businesses like short-term rentals, minpaku.
Speaker: And that's expressly something that now the Japanese public and politicians are not cool with this visa being used for.
Speaker: it It's not really expressly laid out what types of, like we talked about, what types of businesses you can do on the business manager visa. And nowhere does it say minpaku.
Speaker: But I think one thing that the law firm ah June Advisors told me resonates is that um but for especially Japan politics and immigration They take a ah view of the law through its intended meaning, even if it's not written down.
Speaker: um so Now they are codifying it and saying that they definitely want bigger enterprises, so at least 30 million yen.
Speaker: So that cuts out little mom and pop shops. And they want at least one employee, which tells us that they don't want this to not generate jobs. They want at least one person to be employed as a result of your business starting in Japan.
Speaker: Which, you know, if you think about it from their perspective is fair. Yeah, it feels like the only types of business, like you're going to have to establish a business in a different company, in a different country, reach some sort of scale where you can then expand into Japan seems to be yeah and what they're forced, you know, the only way that this can work.
Speaker: Oh, Taki has something to say. Raise his hand. we're going start using this. Nick, when our audience is definitely thinking you like, okay, is there still a window where they can get in before this law comes into place? Or when is this coming into place ah from a business van manager visa change perspective?
Speaker: So that hasn't been announced yet. What they have said is this year. And in Japanese culture, that could mean two different things.
Speaker: It could mean calendar year 2025, or it could mean fiscal year until next April. Um, I have heard that immigration is already taking a harder look at applications for, you know, short-term rental businesses, especially when the, uh, initial capital investment is only 5 million yen.
Speaker: You're allowed to put more at the start. Um, so.
Speaker: Is it too late? I think is the question people are asking. I would advise not to try to get this visa unless you have 30 million yen in reserves somewhere.
Speaker: um I think it's too late to get started. Interesting. Wow. in the process now and trying to finish up, finish up as soon as possible and try to get it through. But if some people are like, I want to start a mom and pop business and i want to get it done before April.
Speaker: One possible kind of low-risk workaround to see if you can get in could be the startup visa. um With the startup visa, the nice thing is that you don't have to invest anything up front besides your time.
Speaker: So you could try for that. And if you get in with the old term, super, and if when you get your confirmation, they say, okay, well, in six to 24 months, you're going to need 30 million yen.
Speaker: then then at least you wouldn't have have already spent it in the market, you know. You've got six months to generate 200K profit in in Japan. Yeah. Okay, so the business manager is effectively dead for people who are wanting to buy an Akia and use that as kind of as a short-term rental visa path unless they're loaded.
Speaker: Does that sound about right? Yeah, sounds about right. okay so I mean, it is possible if they are loaded to, instead of buying one Akia, buy several in close proximity and then hire somebody to be like the handyman full time.
Speaker: I think the...
Speaker: What's dead is the mom-and-pop one or two Akiyas that you run yourself as a full-time method. Now, so far they haven't changed the laws about foreigners owning property. Apparently, that's also on the table for the future.
Speaker: um But as of today, you could still buy some property and set it up as a short-term rental. and And it's just not going to help you live in Japan the way you hoped.
Speaker: There's definitely ways that you could pop around to different parts of the world and With, you know, as you guys know, with the Mimpaku laws, you can only rent it out 180 days anyway by default.
Speaker: You could go somewhere else for 180 days and rent it out while you're gone and then stay in it while you're there. Yeah. Yeah. The old way is is definitely going out the door, and that's by intention.
Speaker: Time to pivot. I say we move to small but helping people buy small, medium-sized businesses that already have employees. thought you were going to say pivot to Singapore or something like that. That's actually something I'm seriously looking at.
Speaker: yeah yeah and I know a couple other people in the market are looking at it too. But it would solve a lot of problems. If you were loaded and had some money, is it a good idea to put a big chunk of your portfolio in a bunch of Akia?
Speaker: Maybe less. Maybe it would be better to put it into a business that's already functioning somewhat. um that you could improve upon, modernize or ah expose their products to international markets, or even a lot of companies just need help with succession. um We have the ah the boomer generation exiting the workforce, both in, know, around the world.
Speaker: um So that's that's definitely something I'm i'm researching right now. That's interesting where it's like, yeah, like I don't even know if you're trying to buy an Akia, how would you get that full time employee, like just getting the full time employee and finding them and hiring them already is a hard enough.
Speaker: Yeah, I think this comes back the Japanese wanting people to be more serious about their businesses that they're opening. So one possible solution ah to finding the person is start this business and wherever it is you're going, you know, move there yourself, maybe with the startup visa and and really become a part of the community.
Speaker: Talk to the you know, the Shiakusho or the Kuyaakusho, talk to Hello Work, ah see if you can find people. But this takes, you know,
Speaker: a lot of japanese skill maybe one of the first hires you would need to make is like a full-time interpreter if you're going to be doing all this stuff uh or at least somebody with bilingual skills there's definitely that's that's the next part it'd have to be bilingual skills and be japanese it can't be like a foreigner so that gets hard to find the The 200K startup capital is just like prohibitively high, right? I think the dream, yeah, it's just like, i don't i don't know if I've ever had 200K just ready to go. like yeah Well, devil's advocate though, like-
Speaker: If you were to start an Akiya business, like a real Akiya business, and you needed a couple places, probably going to need a truck to haul stuff back and forth, you know wood supplies, maybe some renovations.
Speaker: um You're going to need licenses, ah legal fees. It could very well add up to $200,000 pretty quickly. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: um I think what's going to be an issue going forward is figuring out if there is a way that you can get the visa with capital that you have.
Speaker: And then once you have it, spend it on all the things you need, like the like everything we just mentioned. Including the property? and that not Including the property. That's what what would be nice.
Speaker: I'm not saying it is possible, but if that were the case, then it's a little bit more within the logical budget. If it's the other way, like the way it is now, like by the book, like if you wanted to go today and get the business manager visa right up front, you have to have the business essentially 100% ready to and then show the capital.
Speaker: and then show the capital and So if if that were the case, you know, that's that's more like $400,000. If we're if we we took that, you know, initial $200,000 and say, oh, well, you could definitely spend $200,000 and you've already spent it to start up the business. And then they say, well, actually, you also need cash reserves of $200,000.
Speaker: two hundred thousand um that's That's pushing half a million. Yeah. It seems like so prohibitive. Like we've looked down the path of hiring an employee for a Japanese company and like they pay payroll taxes. You got to pay all these other things. And it's just like, what? Like how?
Speaker: How are we as foreigners supposed to figure this out? And of course, there's an opportunity for folks to come in the business and yeah i maybe remove that friction. There's ways to do it. It all takes money. It all takes money, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like all of these problems are solved by money, which is the unfortunate truth.
Speaker: The nice thing about the days when it was 5 million is that in theory, you could start out small with 5 million, no employees. Maybe over a few years, pick up some Japanese, make some local connections, hire a few people part-time, you know fix up the house, renovate, um get some cleaning in and out, you know maybe have somebody that does the yard for you.
Speaker: but and then eventually get to a full-time employee. But now you've got to have that from day one. What is happening to the people that are currently on business manager visas? Are they able to renew or do they are they getting stuck with that $200K capital?
Speaker: This is something that's freaking a lot of people out. and I don't have ah an answer for that today. It's kind of up in the air. Because if they do increase it for those people, like I've i've got some really good friends on this visa, they're going to totally screwed.
Speaker: um what i hope What I hope will happen is that the renewals will go based off the original requirements. um But there's no there's no guarantees right now that that's going to be the case.
Speaker: So it's a risky time. Damn, that just feels so backwards, right? I know they, you know, correct from correct me if I'm wrong, Nick, but I feel like a lot of this was reaction to a lot of Chinese folks using this visa or something that I heard about that. The rumors they they're coming for the free healthcare, which like I don't know if that's true or not.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean... Tinfoil hat, put it on. Here we go. It's not free healthcare. There's definitely high-profile cases of ah visa abuse, and It's interesting to me that, you know, in the media, they were talking about, you know, Chinese immigrants in Osaka taking advantage of, you know, the Minpaku regulations there because Osaka city itself set up these special Minpaku zone rules to make it extra easy just start a Minpaku.
Speaker: So, yeah, that that kind of doesn't make sense to me, but There have been cases of people abusing the system. One high profile case that happened this summer that kind of put this topic into hyperdrive was a A man from sriri Lanka that apparently started up 600 shell companies in Japan. And was operating like a visa scam to get money from other Sri Lankas and then not giving them visas or sometimes giving them visas and then, ah you know, kind of blackmailing them kind of thing. It was it was not good. and
Speaker: um And that was big the Japanese news cycle and really fed into the conservative ah ah political movement as like, you know, these foreigners are coming here, they're breaking our rules, they're taking advantage of the system.
Speaker: But, you know, it definitely doesn't come from nowhere. I have, you know, and but besides, you know, these high profile cases, I've definitely heard a lot of stories about people buying properties in Japan to sit on them and wait for the the value to go up. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, but people do it.
Speaker: um People with no experience in Japan whatsoever are like buying from abroad and not taking care of the buildings. There's definitely like, i I feel a gold rush that was going on not only with the, you know, higher end ah apartments in Tokyo and Osaka, but also within the Akiya space.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: I think what the Japanese government wants to do is have their citizens feel like they're being taken care of first. And, you know, I guess that's the Nihon Faustin.
Speaker: Japan first, right? Yeah. And i i understand where that's coming from. From my personal experience with my clients, like super nice people that just want to downsize. a lot of them want to downsize what they do, put some of their money that they earned in their corporate lives into Japan.
Speaker: And I think eventually they would hire people or or do something like that. But I think one thing that I took away from this whole movement is that going forward...
Speaker: when starting any kind of business in Japan, it's going to be more critical to think about how does this benefit not just me, but the country of Japan.
Speaker: It's like, it's like that old saying from John F. Kennedy. It's ah just switching the countries a bit. It's not what Japan can do for you. It's what you can do for Japan. um so I hope that, you know, people starting businesses going forward will work on their stories about what it is they're accomplishing for Japan is, you know, they're going to have one person, but explaining why this is, this is good.
Speaker: There's going to be a lot fewer of them doing it in hell though. yeah But yeah, I think in my practice, I've still seen a lot of interest in going to Japan. um it's just that the business manager visa is probably not the first choice that people are going to have.
Speaker: One. You know, thing to keep in mind is that before 5 million yen was cheap, people moved to Japan the old fashioned way. They were students, they got jobs, they got married.
Speaker: and These are the like original kind of ways people have immigrated to Japan. And those are still on the table and and they have some new, well, newer tools to use, especially on like the study and and get a job side.
Speaker: One program that is, you know, still criminally underused that's been around since like 2011 is the highly skilled professional visa. a lot of the younger people I talk to, they're like, what should I do?
Speaker: i tell them, you know, find a way to study in Japan and then get that HSP visa. So you could get, you know, even with a modest job in Japan, you could get PR in and three years.
Speaker: And once you have permanent residency, then all these business requirements go out the window. You don't need to worry Um, so we talked about option one, be loaded and just, or Joey was saying, be very experienced and maybe have entities abroad that are already operating or take a step back and understand that there's going to be a longer path for you to get to do what you want to do in Japan.
Speaker: Damn, that the stinks that the friction just got even more friction-full here. And so I guess, Nick, ah if if I'm ah listening to this, i'm buying i want to buy an Akia still.
Speaker: I would like to explore that Visa option. What would be kind of your stack rank of what they explore first? I know you mentioned everything from... student visa to startup visa, but let's say I'm buying, i want to buy a $50,000 Akiya somewhere around Fukuoka or Kyushu. Want to operate as a short-term rental.
Speaker: Pretty open. You know, I have a remote job maybe that I have or another source of income. What would you kind of steer that person towards? look If they wanted to live in Japan full time. Yeah. Maybe like two years from now, they want to live in Japan, but like for now they're buying it. they're Maybe they're still working their, their job in the U intending to move there in a couple of years.
Speaker: What would you kind of, what knowledge would you plant in them today?
Speaker: buy more than one. but so so All right. All right. we like that yeah If they really wanted to do that, yeah, I would. The problem is that, you know, especially in in places like Kyushu, especially rural Kyushu, you guys have more experience with this than me, but oh What would you say the average annual revenue would be for a small house in rural Kyushu that you rent out as the main property? Pretty low.
Speaker: Like not 15 months in a year? I would, yeah, I would say that. What rent in Beppu? Someone said four four, months, maybe a month. third first A student wanted to rent our place and we talked to Beppu. Six months. after we knew Six months.
Speaker: Yeah, so i think 10 to 15K ambitious. Again, it depends on what kind of setup you have, obviously, but... um The revenue is not going to blow you out of the water. So let's say it's 10 for math purposes and you need to cover two-person salaries and then overhead. You're looking at like eight Akiat. Okay, okay. So scaling more Akiat is a move for this versus do you want them to go for the student visa or startup visa or something like that?
Speaker: Well, yeah, I mean... Another possibility is to get a visa to Japan that is not related to their Akia business.
Speaker: Or maybe they have an aspect of their business that makes a lot more money than an Akia would. And, you know, the Akia business could just be passive.
Speaker: And... maybe not a part of their application. If they've been, you know, working on some software that they want to launch, go and get a visa, you know, like a startup visa or business manager visa for that.
Speaker: Try to, you know, get that six-figure revenue and then on the side do Akia for fun. Another thing that I've been talking with my clients about is combining Uh, one of the oldest ways for Western foreigners to get into Japan with the love of Akiya is to first get a gig teaching English somewhere and Japan.
Speaker: ah who Um, and with, you know, with the jet program, you have no idea where you're going. Some of these other programs you have a bit more control over. um you know, they have regional programs or even local ones.
Speaker: get the job that gets you into Japan and, you know, have them set you up with an apartment or whatever. And then from there, you know, hopefully you like the place and buy an Akia, you know, within a, you know, 30 minute drive from wherever you're at.
Speaker: um you can do that while on a a work visa is it's gets complicated once you start making money from it but it takes a while to get operational anyway and um once you start making money on it you can choose to have you know a management company do it so that it's passive and it's not going to affect your visa or you could keep buying places, grow your portfolio, um and then switch over to the business manager visa once you're at scale.
Speaker: Like we talked about, that'll take a long time. So realistically,
Speaker: yeah I think most people would stay on that work visa and then do Akia as a hobby. It's going to be harder to create, you know, a full scale Akia business with just Akia.
Speaker: um Dang. The message really is get a job is the, is the message. Yeah. Not the corporate job. Yeah. Well, what a lot of times happens too is I have clients who are couples and, you know, maybe one of them, just like we do here, one of them does the job and then the other slowly works on the business.
Speaker: That could be part of it too. But yeah, it's, it's definitely a bummer that you can't just show up and buy a couple of Akias and call it good anymore. There has been some talk about, you know, regional programs that could start up.
Speaker: I know that, you know, Fukuoka was the original place that came up with the startup visa. Hopefully there will be a swing back the other direction in the future.
Speaker: But from what I'm reading, it's, it's pretty uniform in Japanese politics right now that everybody's on board with the new visa changes. So there's, there's like no pushback.
Speaker: This is going to happen. Um, and. We just have to deal with it. We're not citizens of Japan. We don't know what would best suit them as a people and as a country. They have to decide, and they did.
Speaker: um It's too bad for us. I think that, you know in my opinion, for Japan, as especially all of my clients would have loved to go on the business route and contributed that way.
Speaker: But they picked this path and now we just have to adjust. We could change direction. We could not move to Japan at all. We could be in Japan part time, but we have to respect the choices that they made and...
Speaker: on ourselves focus on if we do go to Japan, what are we contributing? And really, there's always going to be bad actors out there that are giving foreigners a bad name.
Speaker: And unfortunately, the one bad actor kind of wipes out the goodwill ah you know, hundreds of people. But it doesn't mean that you should stop trying and show Japan that your presence there is a good thing for them.
Speaker: Yeah, I totally agree with you, Nick. I can't control the game, unfortunately. can't make the rules. we' just got to play with them. And, you know, we've we've helped to quite a few people. And we actually just recently talked to someone who's making an artist residency and and they're going through this. And I think they're taking those steps to contribute to the community that I have no doubt that they're gonna theyre going to make it.
Speaker: So I think we have a lot of customers who are just very driven and they will figure it out. I would i would bet on it. But As the rules change, unfortunately, some of the capital requirements change, but there's there still options.
Speaker: So if you're listening, I'd still say like there's ah there's a way to do it. um It's just got a little bit harder. Yeah, one interesting thing developing in Asia-Pacific broadly is that Taiwan is coming out with a pretty long digital nomad visa here pretty soon.
Speaker: So it could be that, you know, i I know you all love Japan, but you could have a base somewhere close that you also enjoy and go to Japan to enjoy your own Akiya.
Speaker: um Japan goes through phases where it likes foreigners and wants them to come. It no longer likes them and wants them to stop. We're heading into the phase where they want us to stop coming.
Speaker: It may be that you have a multi-country approach to what you're doing. damn I love Taiwan food so good I'm i actually I think Taiwan is a great alternative it's probably like what an hour flight from Kyushu yeah it's so close yeah it's pretty pretty amazing I haven't been myself but um I might need to go now just to All right.
Speaker: Cool. Well, Nick, I think we you gave us a really good landscape of what is to come here. Yeah. Don't lose hope, everybody. If you really want to go to Japan, um do it and talk to me.
Speaker: I've got a couple solutions ah to help you figure it out. The first one is talking to me. It's a solution called the Action Plan. We'll go through the whole gambit of what you want to do.
Speaker: And price for that is 3000 bucks. And from there, uh, I hand you off to the lawyers and you take it away and be confident what you're doing. For those who don't have that cash, I also just came up with a new online platform for video courses called Japan Remotely Academy.
Speaker: And it's $9.99 a month, pretty cheap. And we cover a lot of the topics that ah you're interested in. Visas, apartments, dogs and cats, getting a job, all that stuff. And yeah, you can follow along and we put new stuff up on there every month.
Speaker: Awesome, Nick. We're excited to follow a journey. It's been great to see how much your business has grown. And I take it you're all full-time Japan remotely at this point. this is This is it. So Japan remotely, 100%. Let's go.
Speaker: Last time we saw you, I wasn't full-time Akiyama. You weren't full-time. Japan remotely so yeah pi we we made it. um Welcome guys. i by full Full time passion all in. let's Let's grow this space and even Japan has this friction I think we we'll make it through and we'll help people who want to come to Japan eventually make it here.
Speaker: yeah Yeah, I think at some point, another thing we could work on together is is thinking up some CSR too. What's CSR? Customer service represented? No, a corporate social responsibility. Okay. Customer service.
Speaker: I don't know. That's what I, but when I see I see it as the customer service rep, but okay. Corporate social responsibility. Got it. Yeah. Maybe we could find some thing to contribute to in Japan and give foreigners a better name for themselves after all these scandals.
Speaker: Absolutely. Cool, Nick. Well, Hey, thank you so much for being on the podcast again. And we hope to see you in Fukuoka soon. Yeah. Sounds good.
