Japan House: Buying a second home in Japan.

TL;DR

Cutting to the chase, I bought a house in Daito, Osaka prefecture. My offer was ¥5.2M, which was accepted. My total at closing was ¥5.7 million (~$ 38,000 USD), which included real estate agent fees, scrivener fees, city taxes, registration license taxes, and other associated costs. 

Adding in the fees paid to the company that managed the purchasing process, I'm at $ 44,000 USD. I'll chat about that later.

The House

The house sits on a freehold plot of 53 sq/m (this means I've bought the house and the land it sits on); the house itself is 102.9 sq/m. (1,100sq/ft) In the parlance of Japanese residential real estate, it's what's called a 4SDK with an enclosed single-car garage. This means [S]torage Room, [D]ining Room, [K]itchen, and [4] rooms. In the case of this house, two (2) western-style rooms and two (2) tatami rooms. It features a "wet area" (bath, vanity, and clothes washer) and a storage room on the first floor, along with a garage. The second floor features the main entrance/genkan, a toilet room, a kitchen, and one of the western rooms, which serves as the living room. The third floor has the remaining rooms: a large western room, a large tatami room, and a small tatami room. 

Some other vitals: it was built in 1987 (it complies with the 1981 Shin-Taishin seismic standards), which is a nice feature. It's on city water and sewer service, which is also nice. (No need to worry about septic service or wells). Power and gas are available from any number of providers; the dealer's choice, really. The house is only 1km from either of two train stations with a ton of shops and restaurants within walking distance. (And a lot of hospitals and clinics, I will note.)

The bones of the house are good, but it does need some restoration. At the very least, it needs new paint and wallpaper in most of the rooms. All the tatami mats need to be replaced, and new air conditioning units need to be installed in all the rooms. These are the things that need to happen before the house is really habitable. Anything else is a problem for FutureVacationHomeOwnerMe.

I'll be hiring a local property management company to oversee the property when it's not in use, pay the bills and taxes on my behalf, and handle other tasks. I plan to work with the property management company to arrange some of the initial repairs and restoration. That part is still in flight.

I know some, but not all, of the specifics of the situation surrounding the sale; most of it isn't worth recounting. However, the house had been on the market and empty since last October. I'm not saying it's because it's haunted, but it might be haunted.

Taxes are relatively inexpensive, around $500 a year. I'm still lining up insurance quotes, but that shouldn't be bad, either. Property management will cost me ~$200 a month, which is not too bad. I'll have more details on all of that as I finalize the arrangements.

The Buying Service

The service that I used is AkiyaHub.

Akiya Hub is not free; they charge fees for work performed by real people on your behalf. Those fees are not small. Those fees are reasonable; they reduce the burden infinite tire kickers would have on their staff and volunteers. There's no way of getting around it; it's a gate to ensure that you're actually serious about buying a house and engaging their services — insurance that you're not going to flake out and wreck the trust relationships they've worked hard to develop.

There are a few paths for working with AkiyaHub. I chose their pay-as-you-go (PayGo) option, which might be slightly more expensive than their other options, but that's okay. I own a house in Japan, and it was painless on my end.

I just jumped in with their PayGo option to test the waters. ("If I don't at least start somewhere..." kind of thing.). In the end, to purchase the property, I spent approximately $ 6,000 for AkiyaHubs' service, which is a significant amount compared to the house's price. I didn't have to do anything; the whole transaction was handled by AkiyaHub on my behalf in a very professional manner. Everything went smoothly; all I had to do was keep feeding quarters into the machine.

Throughout the entire process, I had a single point of contact at Akiya Hub who worked with me at every step to ensure that I was informed about what was happening, what I needed to do, what other people were doing for me, and — critically — what things would cost. At no point was I surprised by some cost or unaccounted-for expense. My contact has also been invaluable in getting me connected with a property manager to help me manage the property. (Getting services turned on, getting some home inspections done, etc...)

Going in, I was skeptical about AkiyaHub, but they're legit. At least they've been completely legit with me.

The AkiyaHub Pay As You Go path breaks down kind of like this for me:

• Review the listed properties (with several filtering options, including region and price), and find those that look interesting.
• They pull listings from various real estate sources in Japan, which means that properties sometimes appear in their listings multiple times or from areas outside their working zones.
• Request that AkiyaHub make inquiries for specific properties on your behalf.
• $79 per inquiry, to ensure that the house is still available and verify basic facts about the listing. ( Info that you get out of this includes things like whether the home is a freehold or a leasehold, whether the property is rebuildable, etc... )
• I spent $632 for 8 property inquiries. That might seem like a lot, but you're paying for somebody local and fluent in Japanese to spend an hour calling selling agents to verify if the properties are still available and that the listing facts are accurate.
• Request a comprehensive report for a specific property.
• $399 per report, this is a reasonably detailed report of the property, providing valuable insights. It covers topics such as the property itself, zoning restrictions, short-term rental regulations, land overview, tax information, local attractions, neighborhood accessibility, amenities, and more.
• I purchased two of these reports, both of which were approximately 40 pages long, and they helped me understand the houses and the areas I was considering.
• Request a viewing of the property.
• $699 for a remote viewing. Someone goes out to the property on your behalf to inspect the place, take detailed photographs, and catalog the actual physical condition of the property. For my viewing, I got a lot of detailed photos and some video around the place. It helped give me a sense of the renovations that will need to be performed.
• Make an offer
• $1499 AkiyaHub prepares and delivers the offer to the selling agent. They handle all of the communication and manage the trust relationship.
• This feels steep, but it's probably worth it.
• Contract Day (remote)
• $979 AkiyaHub manages the instantiation of the purchase contract, linking selling agents with judicial scriveners who are willing to work with foreign buyers, handles document preparation, oversees in-person stamping and signing, and coordinates between all parties.
• It is extremely important because they ensure that everything is done correctly, in accordance with national and local laws.
• Closing Day (remote)
• $ 1,499. Again, AkiyaHub manages the entire process and handles the signing/closing on your behalf without requiring your presence.

Another great aspect of using AkyiaHub is that they maintain a knowledge base of information for people owning property in Japan, as well as a forum for customers/homeowners to stay connected and share information. They're also