Japan House: Remote [Property] Management

TL;DR

Everything takes longer than you expect or want when you're communicating over email in a language that you're, at best, a first-year student of. 

• Relax, take a breath.
• Don't reply immediately if you don't have to; consider it for a moment first.
• The process works in its own time. Just go with it.

To make my life easier, I asked my real estate agent in Japan for a recommendation for a vacation property manager. They connected me with my current property manager, Tokunaga-san, from SR Real Estate.

Japan House: Insurance!

TL;DR

Fire and Earthquake insurance for the vacation home in Daito is approximately $35 per month. (For the next five years, per the exchange rate on 2025.09.29)

This is a pleasant surprise! I have phone app subscriptions that cost more per month. (I really need to review my subscriptions again.)

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.

EuroTrip

 Spent two and a half weeks wandering around Europe, specifically Munich, Stuttgart, Paris, Cologne, and Amsterdam.  Long trip, probably a little too long to be completely honest. Had a hell of a good time while also getting to the point where I was very keen on having the trip over and done with.

Just going to hit the highlights for each place.

A matter of substance.

The COVID TimeLine hasn't been great for a lot of people, I'm no exception. During this period I've felt more isolated and lonely than ever. It hasn't been unmanageable. Unfortunately some of the ways I've been managing are neither productive or healthy.

Boiled down, I'm conscious that I've been drinking a lot more. Problematically, I'm drinking more when I'm bored or lonely. This has almost become habitual. A bit like boredom or fugue eating, but with adult beverages.

Life Update

It's been a minute since I've posted here.

Anyway...

To date, 2022 has been pretty low key.  Less boring than 2021 for sure.  These are the highlights so.

2021 By Month

 Highs

• Bought a car that I've been thinking about since 1998.
• Two road trips, one to Colorado and one through Nevada, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Washington.
• Vaccination. (First and second Pfizer, then the booster in November.)
• Hanging out with [vaccinated] friends at the Cal Academy of Science for the first real social experience since the start of the Pandemic.
• Helped my Parental Unit clean up and prepare to move from Colorado to Michigan.
• Got to see one of my sets of aunts/uncles and one of my cousins I haven't seen in a very long time.
• Upgraded my eyeballs to contact lenses.
• Received a work promotion.

Lows

• I feel like I've become even more isolated and estranged from the friends and communities I already had trouble keeping connected to.
• My fuck-off deep sense of loneliness grew deeper this year.  I haven't found a comfortable way to express my feelings more generally with out feeling like a shit heel.
• Helping my sisters and mother deal with the fallout from a scam moving broker who stole my mom's money and left her sitting high-and-dry.
• Realizing that it's more likely than not that I'll never see my aunts/uncles in person again. (And possibly my mom, as well.)
• Learning that one of my dogs has started down the long path kidney failure.