FREE Houses in Japan?!

Summary

Podcast Summary: Real Estate Without Borders – Episode: FREE Houses in Japan?!

Release Date: May 29, 2025

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Real Estate Without Borders, host Daniel delves into the intriguing world of Japanese real estate with guest Anton, a seasoned investor renowned for his expertise in renovating and monetizing Japan's abundant vacant homes, known locally as "akiya." Titled "FREE Houses in Japan?!," the episode explores the unique opportunities and challenges within Japan's real estate market, offering valuable insights for both novice and experienced international investors.

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1. Demographics and Real Estate in Japan

Anton begins by outlining the demographic challenges that have led to Japan having approximately 9 million vacant homes. He explains, "Japan doesn't really work the same way as North America or Europe does. Real estate doesn't generally appreciate in value and that together with the decline of the Japanese population just leaves a lot of older homes vacant and empty" (00:52).

Key Factors:

• Population Decline: Japan's population is below the replacement rate, leading to reduced demand for housing.
• Urbanization: A significant migration from suburban and rural areas to major cities like Tokyo exacerbates the vacancy issue in less populated regions.
• Aging Infrastructure: Many of the vacant houses are over 30 to 50 years old, requiring substantial renovation to be viable for modern use.

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2. Anton's Business Model: Turning Akiya into Assets

Anton shares his innovative approach to tackling the akiya problem by purchasing, renovating, and renting out these properties. He states, "Renovating old abandoned Japanese homes with a Swedish touch and then rent them out as a more high-end kind of experience" (02:01).

Business Model Highlights:

• Acquisition: Anton buys akiya at significantly reduced prices, often paying only for the land value and demolition costs, which typically range between $20,000 to $30,000 (08:01).
• Renovation: Utilizing traditional Japanese craftsmanship combined with modern Swedish design elements to preserve the home's original charm while enhancing its market appeal.
• Monetization: Primarily through short-term rentals catering to international tourists, especially architects, design enthusiasts, and American families seeking a unique stay in Tokyo's outskirts.

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3. The Purchasing Process: "Free Houses" Explained

The concept of "free houses" is more nuanced than it appears. Anton clarifies, "The houses are for free, but what you're paying for is the land value minus the demolition and the cost of demolishing a house" (08:01).

Cost Breakdown:

• Land Value: Investors purchase the land at a fraction of its potential value once the house is demolished.
• Demolition Costs: Approximately $20,000 to $30,000 needed to clear the old structure.
• Market Pricing: The land with the house can be purchased for $50,000 to $200,000, depending on location and condition.

Anton emphasizes the importance of understanding the local market dynamics to navigate these transactions successfully.

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4. Renovation and Adding Value

Renovation is a critical component of Anton’s strategy. He explains, "We're trying to always preserve that and build with that in mind. My Japanese carpenters are really world-class" (12:28).

Renovation Strategies:

• Preservation: Maintaining traditional Japanese architectural features such as intricate joints and post-and-beam structures.
• Modern Enhancements: Introducing elements that appeal to international renters while respecting the house's historical integrity.
• Value Addition: Each renovation increases the property's attractiveness, enabling higher rental rates and potential resale value.

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5. Monetizing Through Rentals: Short-term vs. Long-term

Anton primarily focuses on short-term rentals, which have proven to be a lucrative niche. He mentions, "Short term rentals is where I found my kind of niche market" (02:01).

Rental Insights:

• Target Audience: Architects, design professionals, and American families seeking a blend of traditional and modern Japanese living spaces.
• Occupancy Rates: High due to the unique offering and strategic locations near Tokyo and other popular regions.
• ROI Potential: Ranges from 30% to 100%, driven by the low acquisition costs and high rental demand.

Anton also maintains a few long-term rentals to diversify income streams, though short-term rentals remain his primary focus.

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6. Selling Properties: A Viable Exit Strategy?

While Anton primarily treats these investments as cash-flowing assets, there is potential for eventual resale. He states, "if you add a lot of value...you can sell it as an asset at...10-15% ROI" (16:51).

Selling Considerations:

• Market Appreciation: Although Japanese real estate generally doesn't appreciate significantly, strategic renovations and locations can yield respectable returns.
• Buyer Base: International investors and Japanese real estate companies looking to flip renovated akiya.
• Timing: Given Japan's low appreciation rates, Anton focuses more on cash flow than capital gains but acknowledges the potential for profit through value addition.

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7. Understanding the Japanese Rental Market

Anton provides a detailed comparison between the Japanese rental system and those of other countries. He highlights the complexity and high upfront costs associated with renting in Japan.

Japanese Rental Market Features:

• High Upfront Costs: Tenants often pay multiple months' rent as deposits, including "gift money" to landlords, which can total up to $10,000 for a $1,000/month rent (28:14).
• Limited Mobility: Due to high investment costs, renting is less attractive, encouraging ownership or long-term investments.
• Regulatory Environment: Strict rental rules make short-term rentals through platforms like Airbnb a more viable option for foreigners.

Anton contrasts this with the more flexible and tenant-friendly systems in countries like Canada, where upfront costs are significantly lower.

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8. Target Audience and Market Demand

The primary buyers and renters in Japan's akiya market fall into distinct categories. Anton observes, "99% of people buying Akias are Japanese real estate, smaller Japanese real estate companies" (23:11).

Key Demographics:

• Japanese Investors: Small real estate firms and individual investors seeking affordable properties to renovate and flip or rent.
• International Investors: Primarily Americans and other foreigners interested in unique short-term rentals or personal use properties.
• Local Families: Some Japanese families are moving to the countryside for more affordable housing and better quality of life, especially post-COVID.

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9. Anton's Resources: Book and Masterclass

To support aspiring investors, Anton offers comprehensive resources. His book, "Free Houses in Japan," details his journey and strategies, while his Akiya Masterclass provides in-depth training and community support.

Resources Offered:

• Book: Available on Amazon, it covers the true story of making money through DIY renovations of abandoned homes.
• Masterclass: Priced at $970, it includes access to a community of experts, Q&A sessions with architects, visa lawyers, and luxury real estate brokers. Anton shares, "we have people who put in an offer on a house within a few weeks" (32:28).

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10. Future Outlook and Market Potential

Anton remains optimistic about the Japanese real estate market's future, despite current demographic challenges. He anticipates that sustained interest from foreign investors and strategic value addition will drive growth.

Market Predictions:

• Increased Interest: Foreign investment, especially from countries like China, Australia, and the US, is likely to continue boosting certain regions.
• Property Preservation: As more akiya become uninhabitable, timely renovations will be crucial for maintaining property values.
• Potential Policy Shifts: While Japan currently has low immigration rates contributing to the vacancy problem, any future changes in immigration policy could alter market dynamics.

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Conclusion and Call to Action

The episode concludes with Daniel expressing interest in further exploring Japan's real estate landscape in future episodes and encouraging listeners to engage with Anton's resources for deeper insights. Anton reciprocates the enthusiasm, hinting at future collaborations and tours of renovated properties.

Closing Remarks:

• Connect with Anton: Listeners can find Anton's work through his book on Amazon, the Akiya Masterclass website, and his social media channels (YouTube, Instagram @AntonInJapan).
• Join the Community: Aspiring investors are encouraged to join the masterclass to gain hands-on knowledge and access to a supportive network of real estate professionals.

For those intrigued by the prospect of investing in Japan's unique real estate market, this episode offers a wealth of information and actionable strategies to get started.

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Key Quotes

• "Japan doesn't really work the same way as North America or Europe does. Real estate doesn't generally appreciate in value and that together with the decline of the Japanese population just leaves a lot of older homes vacant and empty." – Anton [00:52]

• "Renovating old abandoned Japanese homes with a Swedish touch and then rent them out as a more high-end kind of experience." – Anton [02:01]

• "The houses are for free, but what you're paying for is the land value minus the demolition and the cost of demolishing a house." – Anton [08:01]

• "Short term rentals is where I found my kind of niche market." – Anton [02:01]

• "99% of people buying Akias are Japanese real estate, smaller Japanese real estate companies." – Anton [23:11]

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Timestamp Reference

• 00:52 – Anton introduces himself and explains Japan’s unique real estate market.
• 02:01 – Discussion on Anton’s business model focusing on short-term rentals.
• 08:01 – Explanation of the "free houses" concept.
• 12:28 – Anton talks about preserving traditional architecture during renovations.
• 16:51 – Potential for selling renovated properties.
• 23:11 – Demographics of akiya buyers.
• 28:14 – Insights into Japan’s complex rental system.

(Note: Click on the timestamps to jump to the specific sections in the full podcast transcript.)

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Stay Connected

For more insights into international real estate investing and to keep up with the latest trends, subscribe to Real Estate Without Borders and follow their episodes. Don’t forget to check out Anton’s resources to embark on your own journey into Japan’s promising real estate market.

Transcript

[Daniel]

Okay. Welcome back to Real Estate Without Borders. Today I don't have my co host Dave with me. I am joined by, I guess I would argue is much going to be much more interesting for everyone. I'm sure people are tired of hearing me and Dave talk about real estate in a couple of different countries at this point. And Dave's lost in travel somewhere on the way back from Mexico right now. He went down there to do a couple of deals. So we're going to be talking about a different country where people in North America can invest. People all over the world are flocking there would say because there's 9 million empty homes in the country of Japan. And I'm joined today by who I would say is probably the foremost expert in what's going on with these IKEA in Japan. So Anton, can you tell me a little bit about yourself? Tell me about your book and your journey and what's going on in the Japanese market right now.

[Anton]

Thank you, Daniel, for the very kind introduction and thank you for having me on your show. Yeah, I'm Anton. I'm originally from Sweden and I've been buying and renovating mostly vacant abandoned homes in the vicinity of Tokyo for the past five years. Yeah, it's been a wild journey. Japan doesn't really work the same way as North America or Europe does. Real estate doesn't generally appreciate in value and that together with the decline of the Japanese population just leaves a lot of older homes vacant and empty. And there I've seen a lot of opportunities as well, snapping these unwanted homes up, add a lot of value, renovate them nicely and then in my case, I rent them out as short term rentals partly. I have a lot of, a lot. I have a few long term rentals as well. But short term rentals is where I found my kind of niche market. Renovating old abandoned Japanese homes with a Swedish touch and then rent them out as a more high end kind of experience, keeping many older Japanese traditional details and then rent them out to traveling families and groups, mostly in the Tokyo region. Yes.

[Daniel]

Amazing. So I guess the whole thing like the reason why there's 9 million empty houses in Japan is because they've gone through a bit of like a demographic collapse as well as like more of an urbanization. Right. So I think like a lot of. There's two factors I think, and you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but a lot of people are moving away from these more like suburban and rural areas into the city centers like Tokyo, but then also Japan's population isn't really growing at a meaningful rate. And so I think it's below the replacement rate, which means that there's no kind of perpetual demand that, that. And so since the demand's been shrinking, you've had fewer and fewer people consuming these homes. Is that a correct assessment? And does that like, does that not present a headwind when you're trying to create a business out of short term rentals or rentals to the population?

[Anton]

Both yes and no. And you're correct. Like the biggest reason is because of the declining population and people are moving into the bigger cities. So my prediction is that Tokyo, from Tokyo and all the coastal line down to. I don't know how familiar you are with the geographic of Japan, but from Tokyo down to Fukuoka, there's going to be a strip and on top of that maybe Niseko and Hakuba, where prices have gone really crazy the past years, like a foreign influx of money in China, Australia, all over Europe, the US and people are buying up ski lodges and building kind of luxury hotels up in these areas. So people are moving from the countryside there. And some of these areas more urban, more in the countryside. There are some areas where, yeah, the population has. Yeah, there you see Tokyo. So in Chiba, for example, some parts has like 60% vacant homes. Some crazy numbers. And in 2033, I talk a lot about that in the Akia masterclass, the course we have, and also the three houses in Japan, the book in 2033 there will be about 22 million vacant homes, mostly in the countryside, as you say, but also in Tokyo. Most of my business is in Setagaya, which is the neighboring ward of Shibuya. Shibuya, the biggest crossing in the world, where millions of people, if you've been to Japan, like I think 60% or something of tourists visiting Japan have been to Shibuya Crossing. So this is the neighboring ward and in this ward there is about 50 or 52,000 vacant homes. And even if you visit like Roppongi Crossing, which is one of the more famous party areas, just like 50 or 100 meters away, you can see dilapidated vacant homes. It's unreal. If you come from. I'm from Stockholm, we have a housing crisis. I lived in New York for a few years and seeing an abandoned house is very rare. And it's something that kind of fascinates you. Kind of like Urbex is a popular thing. But you would never imagine you could do urban exploration in Times Square in New York, for example.

[Daniel]

Right, right. So this is interesting then like so then does it become really an exercise of like knowing and understanding? When I think about real estate and just investing in real estate and buying real estate, you know, always hear that cardinal rule of location, location, location, right?

[Anton]

Yeah.

[Daniel]

So you really need to have a good keen understanding of the market and what areas are going to experience a increase in demand and population and what areas are going to see a significant decrease. Because it sounds like there's a high risk for that to take place in some of these areas, right?

[Anton]

Yeah, totally. If you don't not well read up and if you're not educated, like there's a lot of risk in this. With this said, like, I have many Japanese friends flipping houses here as well. And you could basically buy a dilapidated house, fix it up really cheaply, and then if you rent it out as the cheapest rent on the market, if it's a big house, the probability of it getting rented out, it's fairly big. And many people don't want to deal with short term rentals. So this is what you can do on scale. Basically. I have a few friends who own a few hundred of these former Akias because akiya basically means a vacant home. Basically a house that no one sees any value, no one is doing anything with it. Trash disposal in Japan is incredibly expensive and then just trash disposal. Japanese people are famous for working very hard, right. They work six days a week. And if you don't know anything about real estate, it's kind of a closed community. Even in Europe, if you don't know nothing about real estate, if you know nothing about renovation, where do you start? It's easy to get kind of carried away. And if you don't know anything about it, if you don't know anything about the industry, it's easier to just leave it there. You pay your property taxes that are fairly low and then you just leave it there instead of actually taking care of the problem. I've bought houses, like just walking down the street, I've seen a vacant home, I found the owner. And then when you ask them if you could buy or purchase and take care of their vacant homes, they've been asking me like, are you sure you really want to take, take over this problem for me? And you take it over and you, you spend your man hours, you spend your like your time and money in, to actually create value there. And then it's been, there's a lot of opportunities and that's been very, that's been a very successful business for me at this point.

[Daniel]

So walk me through that. Like what that looks like if this person says yes. And now all of a sudden, because your book is called Free Houses in Japan and so you get a free house, you've taken on the burden from this person, you're saving them some trouble. You get the house for $0. What does it cost you to make this thing into a profitable investment?

[Anton]

So the book is called Free Houses in Japan and essentially the houses are for free. But what you're paying for is the land value minus the demolition and the cost of demolishing a house. And the cost of demolishing a house is usually about 20, $30,000. And then you can add a premium on top of that because the land has a house on top of it, you can get 50, 100, $200,000 off on the purchase price. So essentially the house itself has, minus value, it is more than 30, 40, 50 years old. So yeah, the easier you make, the easier it is for the seller to sell the house to you, the better of a deal you can make of it. It's a really, the entire market is like, it's like flipping a coin. Like the American market works this way and then the Japanese market is the complete opposite. I don't know if that makes sense.

[Daniel]

It does, yeah. I mean it's hard to. So then what are the key, like if you were to say, and I don't want you to give away too much, but like I know you educate people on how to be successful in this space and I would encourage anybody who's interested in doing this to either check out your book or your masterclass. I'll share your website as well in the show notes. But you know, what are the, like, give me a summary of a couple of the key things that somebody needs to know to be successful to, to, to build a profitable investment business from these ikea.

[Anton]

I think first of all, as you said, Daniel, it's, it's about location and it's not so much about like being able to sell the house with a profit. It's more of a cash flowing business. And if you can add 10, 20, or if you do a short term rental, 30, 40, 50, up to 100% ROI, like that's a lot of cash coming into your company, right?

[Daniel]

Yeah.

[Anton]

And then you also got to have your kind of final client or your guest in mind, your tenant or the renter, who are you renting to? I think from a foreigner's perspective, we have the arbitrage of seeing Japan from a foreigner's perspective and it's incredibly hard to rent A house or a unit in Japan as a foreigner, if you don't have a permanent residency or a Japanese spouse or Japanese partner. But a foreigner can at the same time buy and operate real estate in Japan on almost the exact same conditions as a Japanese person. So I think the best way of approaching this from a foreigner's perspective is to buy into an area you want to spend time in because essentially you've got to add value to the house. I mean, that's an adventure in itself. It's Japan. It's a fantastic place to, to be in. And that was the, the reason I bought my first unit here. And when I. After I've lived here for like seven months because of these crazy rental rules.

[Daniel]

Yeah, it, it's. And you. These are your, your houses right here on your site or. Yes.

[Anton]

That left one we purchased for about $60,000. It was filled with things everywhere was. Yeah, maybe it doesn't work right now. We're updating the website right now.

[Daniel]

That's okay. Yeah. But yeah, I mean you can tell just from looking at it. It's like these are beautiful old architecture that you. And a style of architecture like the post and beam is that you don't see in very many other places in the world. Right?

[Anton]

Yeah. I really appreciate it. So we tried to build and renovate the houses while we preserve the soul of the original house. So the older the better. If you think of a Japanese temple, they can be hundreds of years old and they're beautiful with like old Japanese craftsmanship and traditional ways of building things with intricate joints and stuff. While you look at brand new houses, like a normal family home, they're built not to be torn down in 25 years. And it's pretty sad. If you go to any big city in the world, Paris, London, New York, Stockholm. If you want to live in like a central nice area, the probability of the house being at least 100 years old is fairly high.

[Daniel]

Yeah, there's really no pride with this, with this current. Like it's very commoditized the way that we build houses today. Whereas before, I mean it was they took so much pride and craftsmanship in trying to make these things last forever. Right. You're building a home for your family and for generations. I know there's like this multi generational wealth like theme or not just wealth, but just multi generational theme thinking for the future generations in Japan especially. And I think that really reflects in the craftsmanship that they were using during building of that time.

[Anton]

We're trying to always preserve that and build with that in mind. My Japanese carpenters are really world class. But it's also what's happening in Japan right now with all of these abandoned and vacant homes that people don't really see any value in. If the population declines and kind of implodes in this way, it's going to happen all over the world. Maybe not in the next 10 years. If America would stop immigration or if Sweden would have stopped immigration, the population would have declined like years ago. And Japan doesn't have any immigration at the moment. So that's why it's happening. Right.

[Daniel]

So let's talk a little bit about that because like, I mean you can't just solve a demographic collapse. Right. You see it in Italy as well. I mean the one way you could do it is by increasing your immigration. And we've seen a lot of countries in the western world do that. Like Canada where I'm at from, we had the highest population growth in the developed world. Right. The highest non population growth outside of emerging markets like Africa. Right. South Sudan and Syria I think were the only two countries that had higher population growth. And our. And it created a housing bubble. So I think that there's some element of balance. But Japan is basically the far opposite end of the spectrum where they haven't allowed any permanent. Like somebody can go. Like you said, I could go and buy a house in Japan and I could own it as an investor or even an Airbnb it and then I could go and travel and visit it myself for I don't know, whatever, 30, 60 days at a time.

[Anton]

I think it's six months a year.

[Daniel]

Right. And but that's still not going to going to contribute to like the population being sustainably growing. So is there any like, what's the, what's like the long term play or is it purely a cash flow play and you're sort of accepting that the demand pool and the population growth, you're not going to be selling these houses to somebody else outside of profit maybe ever. And you haven't modeled that into your investment thesis at all. And you're only buying it like you mentioned, as a cash flowing business, is that it? Or do you think that there's some sort of hope on the horizon that maybe Japan goes a bit more of the way of the western world and tries to attract some population growth?

[Anton]

So I do a lot of Japanese media and I did a pretty big TV show that was aired on Sunday and we talked about this. So Japan has on a population with about 125 million people, there is about 3.8 million immigrants in Japan right now and this is the most it's ever been. It's on an all time high right now. And for me, like I moved here about seven years ago and I love life in Japan. It's obviously I go back a lot as well, but life here is crazy good. It's crazy and it's good and it's crazy good. At the same time, I see with a growing interest in Japan, if you buy into good locations, I think the price is going to rise because if a house has been abandoned and vacant for 10 years, it's probably not salvageable, it starts to leak water. And if it's not taken care of and you can't take care of it, it's going to, yeah, it's going to go bad very, very fast. Right. Some of these houses are going to be well taken care of. And if you buy into the right areas and if you add a lot of value and maybe you rent it out and then you can sell it as an asset. Right? You can sell it as, I don't know, let's say you buy. I have many friends who buy at 10, 15, 20,000 around that mark. They add value to it and then they put a tenant in it and then they can sell it as an asset at, I don't know, 10, 15% ROI. So already there they've added value and then they could sell it off. But I have no ideas and I have no intent to sell my properties as of this stage. I could probably sell them as an investment unit. I think in the future.

[Daniel]

Would you make a profit? You'd make money on any of the properties that you've already bought and invested money in?

[Anton]

Yeah, totally.

[Daniel]

And how long have you owned most of those?

[Anton]

So I bought four properties last year. Two of them are monetized already and I could probably sell them for about double just by this one year. But it's because you create value in it. Right? But just the house as it is, maybe. I think the market is going up because there's a huge interest mostly from foreign investors. Right. So I think the market has gone up maybe 10, 15, 20% and this is rare. So Japan had the bubble era in the 90s, right? Yeah, the economy was booming. And that's another reason why Japanese investors are not really especially young people, because they grew up in this environment of people not really liking and preferring real estate investment. So, so we're, I think it was last year or two years ago, we just got back to the same Levels as pre bubble.

[Daniel]

Yeah, Their stock market as well. Right. Like it took, they just hit their, their previous stock market peak from like 1989, I think so. Okay, I want to talk about. Go ahead. Sorry. No, sorry.

[Anton]

But then the Japanese talk about that there is a bubble again, but if you compare it to like an international level, I don't really believe so.

[Daniel]

Yeah, no, I would agree. I mean, I think that anywhere you're getting free houses, anywhere in the country, I think that bubble is not really a huge thing of concern. Right. I mean if people, if people really wanted to, they could, you know, if they needed to move to retire, they could go get a free house. Right. Or a cheap house somewhere. You know, whereas in like in, in Canada and many parts of the U.S. you know, a lot of retirees can't even leave an urban area. You can't leave a city like Toronto or Vancouver and drive an hour away from the airport and still be able to afford a house. Right. Whereas in, you know, in Italy or Japan, you can't because they're not in those, in those excess demand situations. So. Okay, there's two things that you mentioned that kind of caught my attention. So number one was that you were selling, you could sell these things. And what does it look like? What does the process of doing that look like? You know, like if I sell a property, do I need a realtor? Do I, Is there buyer agents? Like, I'm sure you're familiar with how it works in the US Given you're in New York and how it works in Europe. Can you explain that in a context that would be understandable to people in a couple of different countries?

[Anton]

Very interesting question. I'm going to try to explain as easy as possible. I think Japan is a very, it's a country of secrets and there's a lot of things happening below the surface, especially when it comes to real estate. There are so many off market deals, especially when it comes to these cheaper properties, because the brokers brokering these deals, they usually get 3% of the purchase price. So the buyer has a broker, the seller has a broker, and that broker could be the same and that's called Ryota. Then they get 3% from both sides. That's usually how a transaction works. There's a buyer, there's a seller, and they each have a broker that represents them.

[Daniel]

Okay, but it's very much like US model.

[Anton]

Yeah, Very, very similar. But if the house is $5,000, it's not worth the broker's time to sell that house. Right?

[Daniel]

Yeah, yeah. Like, I guess if they're these, these properties where there's very little demand, they just don't. They just like, whatever, sell it yourself on the, On, Yeah, you know, on the Internet.

[Anton]

And I've seen face, but I've seen Facebook groups in Japanese. Hey, take my house. Like, I'll give it to the first one who wants it.

[Daniel]

You know, send me one of those. I'll. I'll take one of those for sure. Yeah, I would.

[Anton]

Yeah, I'll take a master class and sign the contract. Maybe you can actually.

[Daniel]

Well, that's a good. That's a good excuse for me to make a trip to Japan. My daughter's been begging me to go to Japan. So there you go.

[Anton]

Oh, I'll invite you.

[Daniel]

Yeah, I know. I'll have to come. Come visit 100% once we get a chance, we'll make a. Do a bit more of a video out of this and actually tour some of these and do like a little YouTube series.

[Anton]

Let's do it. Let's do it. So spring is best time to go.

[Daniel]

Okay. That's all the cherry blossoms. Yeah, yeah, it's fun. It's funny. Like, Toronto is very famous for cherry blossoms as well, because we were gifted a bunch of them by. By. By Japan in the 90s.

[Anton]

I heard this, like, this was like 50, 60, 70 years ago. Even longer, maybe.

[Daniel]

Yeah, it was a long time ago. No, it was like 30 or 40 years ago. Yeah. So we have a bunch of these cherry blossom trees in High park in Toronto, and, and they're. They were all gifted from Japan. So it's kind of cool. People go out and take pictures of them. Know what influencers do? I'm sure you see all of that stuff in Japan even more. So this kind of leads me to my next question. Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

[Anton]

I drove one time from New York up to Toronto.

[Daniel]

Oh, yeah.

[Anton]

So I've been to Toronto one time and we. I had a really good hamburger. I remember close to the. The Big Tower.

[Daniel]

Okay. Yeah, it was.

[Anton]

Yeah, it was like a burger joint. And when I turned 18, I got from my godfather, I got like 40 Canadian dollars.

[Daniel]

Nice.

[Anton]

And I used those 40 Canadian dollars that I got as a graduation gift to buy this burger in Toronto.

[Daniel]

Yeah. I wonder what it was. You have to see if you can find out what restaurant it was.

[Anton]

I sent him a pic. So. Yeah. What's the next question? Sorry.

[Daniel]

No, yeah, it's okay. I like the casual conversation. It's good to. I mean, it feels like everybody has a story. Like everybody from around the world always has a story of, like, Toronto or New York, right? So who. Who's buy now? We're talking about. So we talked about you're going to sell it. We know what it's going to cost to do it with a realtor, who's buying these things and who's signing up for your course. Like, where's the demand for Japanese houses coming from? Because this is always what fascinates me the most. We talked to a guy who's doing this in Italy and he's saying, you know, there's actually a lot of Italians who are actually buying a lot of these cheap houses now because they're, you know, there's a new wave there and there was affordability. Or they're, you know, they're starting to start families again now and they want to move into the suburban areas. Like who. Who is, for the most part, maybe you could give me, like the top three are the people that are. That are trying to buy these houses.

[Anton]

So talking from like a sales perspective, my book, like, the biggest demographic on my book is America. So the. And the people buying my course are usually people in Japan or people who are about to move to Japan because they see that they're going to be here for a few years and they want to get in. But when it comes to akias, I think 99% of people buying Akias are Japanese real estate, smaller Japanese real estate companies. Who knows how to buy them incredibly cheap, then they add some value on them, and then they put them up in the open market. But it's very similar to Italy as well. A lot of Japanese families are moving out to the countryside. They can afford to buy a house. They can afford to make it into their own home instead of being stuck in the rat race in the big city, working seven days a week, barely being able to pay rent. So many people are actually seeing. Many Japanese people are also seeing this as an opportunity as well, especially during COVID I think that's when it started, because people actually had time to rethink their life as well.

[Daniel]

100%. Covid really forced a lot of people to explore the area outside of the cities, Right. Because you couldn't do much in the cities, right? You couldn't go to restaurants, you couldn't go to work. You had to wear a mask. Everywhere there's lockdowns. You had to be six feet away from everyone. That sounds like that'd be pretty difficult, probably in a city like Tokyo where you see, like you said, that big crossing, right? Like, how are you Going to stay six feet away from people. So I imagine of all the places in the world, it probably saw one of the biggest impacts during that period of time. Right.

[Anton]

And the state of emergence is here. Like, you were not allowed to like, basically leave your. And leave your house. Like when I say leave my house, like the plots that I'm buying, they're like 60 square meters. I own a plot of land that's 45.

[Daniel]

Right.

[Anton]

And the house I grew up in, in Sweden, we had like 1,400 square meters of land. So you could fit what is that in square feet. That's like 500, 600 square feet.

[Daniel]

Yeah, six. Yeah, 650 square feet. That's the lot. Or like that's a plot of land.

[Anton]

That's the plot of land, really.

[Daniel]

But that would be in an urban area. Right? Like that's not in the countryside.

[Anton]

Super urban. The biggest piece of land I own is about 25,000.

[Daniel]

Okay. So just under an acre for Americans, that's about two thirds of an acre.

[Anton]

Yeah, something like that. And that's right by the beach. It's a really nice house. That was $50,000 about an hour away from Tokyo.

[Daniel]

Nice. And then, and then I guess this leads me to kind of like the final question. Who's. Who's renting them? Like, if so we know who's kind of most interested in buying them. When you're, and you're renting these out as Airbnbs, who are you renting to? Like, I imagine you're meeting guests from all over the world, but like, is there something, anything, any trends that stand out to you about who's most interested in renting these things out?

[Anton]

I think in my case, it's a lot of architects. It's a lot of architects and American families, mostly in the, I would say in the architecture, design and entertainment world, who wants to kind of like experience a mix of Japan but still have it a little bit more modern? I think the more business people, they would probably stay in a hotel.

[Daniel]

Right.

[Anton]

When you're four or five, six people. My houses are about 80 square meters, two, three bedrooms. If you're coming to Japan for like a week, 10 days, two weeks, we have people who stayed for like one or two months as well. And again, it's really hard for a foreigner to rent something short term. And Airbnb, it's safe, you know what you get most of the time. So I would say 40, 50, 60% of our guests are Americans. For the normal, like long term rentals. I think Japanese people are the final customer.

[Daniel]

Right. That makes sense because it's pretty hard for somebody to just immigrate to Japan and rent a house, right? Like it's not like, like, you know, I mean the US is difficult to immigrate to, but their population so grows from immigration Canada, like you can get a student visa, like you go apply for a college that like will guaranteed to let you in, get a student visa, come rent a house. I mean they've, they've scaled it back a little bit, but that's pretty much how it was for the last two years. Right. So our rental market went nuts, went up. Like rents were going up 20, 30% year over year.

[Anton]

That's crazy.

[Daniel]

But, but there. And all the demand was coming from other countries, right. A lot of, like a lot of students from India were moving to Canada.

[Anton]

What kind of like background? Background background checks. And like for example, the rent is a thousand dollars. What are the upfront fees to rent a unit in Toronto?

[Daniel]

Just first month's rent and last month's rent. So you just pay a last month's rent deposit and then a first month's rent on the day that you move in. There's no legally at least in Toronto, like in Ontario, because it's regulated provincially in Ontario you can't charge more than that. You can't charge a security deposit or anything like that. Like Canada is very tenant friendly country, right? Yeah.

[Anton]

Like the Japanese system is wild.

[Daniel]

Tell me about it. I'm curious. Like, yeah, I want to hear this. Tell me.

[Anton]

So the newer the house, the better it is. Japan has earthquakes, natural disasters and also this boom. And the preference for new as well. Right. The amount of like house building companies and house makers in Japan is unbelievable. So let's say you want to move into a unit that has $1,000 in rent, you got to pay usually one or two months rent up front. Right. Then you got to pay a one, two or three months deposit. Then you got to pay one or two months in real estate agent fee for them to find it. Like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace is usually not a thing for rentals, especially not in Tokyo. Then they have this crazy thing called gift money, which is it's just a gift to the landlord. Thank you for letting me like rent your apartment and all of these things. Adds up, right?

[Daniel]

Yeah, sounds like it.

[Anton]

So it's not rare that you pay US$10,000 just to be able to rent something that costs $1,000 a month. And most of this money doesn't come back to you.

[Daniel]

So this is Like a down payment on a rental? Basically, yeah. Crazy. So is that only in urban areas? Like, is that only in like the. More like, like higher demand, Like Tokyo, like the bigger cities or.

[Anton]

It's mostly in Tokyo. This gift money is slowly kind of fading away, but it's been there for a hundred years. It's been there since like 1920.

[Daniel]

Crazy.

[Anton]

So that was the reason why I purchased my first unit. So for an equivalent unit, I would have paid, I don't know, $14,000 in just moving fees. But I took my hard earned cash and I purchased a similar unit instead. And then the fees were like $5,000. And I thought that hopefully I can add some value and maybe sell this if I would want in the future.

[Daniel]

And so if I'm a tenant and I gotta pay like tens of thousands of dollars to rent a place, and then why wouldn't I just buy? Are the prices astronomical in Tokyo?

[Anton]

If you don't know where to, where to look. Right, right. And then maybe you don't want to live in the place forever either. Right. I think it's normal if you're getting married, maybe you have your first kid on the way, which like no one is having kids in Japan.

[Daniel]

Yeah, nobody's having kids anywhere but. Except Africa. Right.

[Anton]

So I think that's. That's probably a different story, but yeah. And then on top of that, every second year you got to pay a renewal fee as well for the contract.

[Daniel]

Crazy. Crazy.

[Anton]

It's really upside down.

[Daniel]

I would love to. I would love to dive in on this more next time. I want to be respectful of your time and I know we try and keep these episodes like under, under 40 minutes just for the audience's sake, but it'd be awesome to have you back as like maybe a recurring guest maybe once a quarter or something like that to just see what's going on in the Japanese market and get some updates from you.

[Anton]

I would love to.

[Daniel]

Yeah. Where can people find you if like, like if they want to reach out, they want to buy a house in Japan, they want to take your masterclass, they want to buy. Where would you recommend they do that.

[Anton]

So the book can be bought on Amazon. Free houses in Japan. The True story of how I make money DIY renovating abandoned homes then we have akiyamasterclass.com then I also do YouTube, Instagram, Antoninjapan. So you can find me a little bit here and there. But Akiya Masterclass is the more in depth knowledge about buying, renovating, and adding value to homes.

[Daniel]

What's the Cost of that.

[Anton]

Right now it's $970. And then you get access to our community as well.

[Daniel]

Amazing.

[Anton]

So you get to have Q&As together with me and the other experts in the panel as well. We have Japanese architects, really big investment community only aimed for Japanese. We have visa lawyers, luxury real estate brokers. So there's a mix of people in the real estate sector.

[Daniel]

How many members are in there so far and are people doing deals from that, from the program?

[Anton]

Yeah, we had our first. We've only been live for like, about a month. It's been in post production for like eight months. So we're finally there. And this is, this is, this is kind of the first podcast I'm doing, like, starting to promote it, which is sweet.

[Daniel]

Well, it's an honor. Amazing, man.

[Anton]

Cute and cool. But it's, it's, it's been good. It's been really good. We had our. One of our students yesterday said that they put in an offer on a house and it's in like, just a few weeks, so it's really sweet.

[Daniel]

Yeah, I'll talk to Dave and I'll see if we can get. We'll get a membership for the show.

[Anton]

Amazing.

[Daniel]

I'm not even joking. Like, I would do one of these things. Maybe I'm waiting for the, like to figure out what's going on with the global economy before I do anything crazy, but you know what I mean, it's too volatile for my liking. But. But once I think that just settles and I kind of can see what's happening, especially like, Japanese bonds are going nuts right now too. Right. And that's that the, the US Market depends heavily on that. We. That's a story for another time. But yeah, we should, we should definitely keep in touch. I'd love to have you back on the show. Thanks so much for your time and everybody listening. Make sure you. Make sure you check out Anton stuff, Follow him on Instagram, YouTube, et cetera. Check out the masterclass. Buy the book. I highly, highly recommend all of it. So thank you.

[Anton]

And I'll see you, Daniel, in about three months. But I also see you in March, you said, right?

[Daniel]

Tokyo in March. Am I coming?

[Anton]

Yeah, you said that about 10 minutes ago, didn't you? Maybe.

[Daniel]

Probably, yeah, I think to sign a contract or something like that. Right. So, yeah, I'm down. Let's do it. Yeah. Hopefully I can do a deal there by next year. Yeah, that'd be awesome. Yeah. Okay, thanks a lot.

[Anton]

I'll help you out.