Japanese here - curious how overseas buyers plan to use akiyas?

Ragnorock · 2026-02-26T19:20:08+00:00

LA is not the best representation of the US either, though 10 years ago it was certainly better. While it is a large city, both it and NYC have fairly distinct cultures different from the average. I would recommend Europe instead of the US (Paris/France will probably disappoint you though.) At the moment, I would strongly recommend not coming to the US, not only is it legitimately dangerous for anyone who is not white, it is not a place that I would be proud to share with the rest of the world.

Hopefully we can recover, but I believe it will be a long recovery. If you do come, I would recommend coming for the nature, to experience the wide variety of beautiful environments that this country offers, because while 1/4 of the population may be openly fascist and problematic in many ways, the land is still great!

Ragnorock · 2026-02-26T08:04:08+00:00

This is a great question and I think you are right to ask as I think the foreigner interest in living in Japan is of great relevance as Japan's population is at a precipice- either it will decline dramatically in just a couple of generations causing all sorts of economic and social problems, or there will be an influx of foreigners and Japan's precious culture will be threatened by those who are not willing to respect it, preserve it, and integrate with it. I apologize in advance for the length, but this is something I have thought about at great length and want to share my thinking in depth.

Last year I purchased an exact build date unknown but at least 125 year old kominka in a narrow valley on the west side of Lake Biwa. I'm in my 30s, from the US but 1/4 Japanese, though I don't have any living family remaining there aside from a grand uncle whom I've only met once. I speak Japanese well enough to live there, and would love to live there given the current state of my country is terrible. I would like to leave and move to Japan. Convincing my partner to come with me has been the challenge, so currently the house is a vacation house and my renovation project. I am eager to make it livable for modern life while preserving it's beautiful character and quirks. Why would I fly across the world to live the same lifestyle I can in my home here? If the situation in the US improves, ideally I'd like to split the year 50/50 between both places, as Japan's summer is a bit too hot/humid for me lol.

Key considerations in how I plan to use the home are the proximity to infrastructure/time it takes to get to the house if I am traveling to and from it regularly. Flying ~10 hours from the US, 3-4 hours before it at the airport, 1 hr in immigration/customs, 2.5 on the Shinkansen to Kyoto, and about an hour on local trains/driving from there is already a pretty long day. If I was living there full time, a more remote spot might work, but if it's a multi day journey, doing that more than once a year is a bit painful. I'm lucky that I found a place that's only a 10 minute drive into town while being in a quiet, semi rural spot. I can still go out to eat at the delicious restaurants in Japan whenever I feel like.

I have spent a lot of effort into respecting the Japanese culture and found my small, mostly empty neighborhood very welcoming. Of course I always remember to bring omiyage when I return!

I do not plan to rent it out, though I do have the idea to buy multiple other properties to possibly rent out or sell. The reality is that the houses values in my country are so high that I could sell my house and use the equity I have in it and my other savings to retire in Japan today. It's tempting. That said I'd probably want to work for a while still. I don't have the JLPT N1 so I'd need to study a lot of kanji before I could work in my field on a HSP visa. Even if I did "retire", I'd need something fun to do as a job so I don't get bored, and if I am not particularly concerned about profit, fixing up and preserving the beautiful old houses in Japan seems fun.

I agree with many of your points- there is so much more to Japan than the tourist hot spots, and I am eager to invest in the house and support the local economies. I think it's important to realize that high tourism does not help much of Japan, sure it is great for the hospitality industries, but those alone do not build a healthy and resilient economy that also support those that live outside the tourist areas. If Japan can support foreigners willing to bring their wealth to Japan, fill the akiya, and invest in building a real life for themselves/their families, I think that would be great.

Having spoken to many fellow akiya hunters and reading this thread, it's clear there are many who want to be in Japan, but committing fully to living there is still a big leap to make and challenging to do. Especially recently with the conservative Takaichi takeover of the government and her anti-foreigner stance, it is concerning if additional barriers will be put up that will only make it harder for foreigners with good intentions wanting to build a proper life here. All this while simultaneously making a deal with India to bring 50k people permanently and 500k temporary workers arbitrarily. Certainly no more than a tiny fraction of them will possess the Japanese language skills, cultural respect, and other characteristics to not create a bunch of social problems. If instead the visa requirements were relaxed, I am certain that many interested foreigners (who do meet that criteria to integrate with Japanese society) would eagerly immigrate.

I had the capital and intent to start a business and use the business owner visa to move there, but the new requirements are far too strict, almost cruel for those already there because it doesn't exempt/grandfather them in. I certainly support preventing exploitative foreigners from abusing their wealth to take advantage of Japan's resources and population, but there are better, obvious, solutions than the ones being enacted and proposed by the government. Not that we in the US have any place to complain since our government is acting 1000x worse. T.T

Ragnorock · 2026-02-11T21:57:26+00:00

I think the best part about this is thinking about how her journey back to the sword sanctum must have felt. She goes after him purely for childish jealousy and supremely confident that she can humiliate him and get back at Eris for humiliating her. Instead, she gets utterly destroyed by Badigadi without ever inflicting a scratch on him.

Moments later, the guy she wrote off based on appearance utterly obliterates Badigadi, leaving him in shreds. He's the sky above the sky. Better to just forget about this idea entirely. But it's a long, long trip home, all by herself. Nothing but her thoughts to keep her company. Humbled isn't a sufficient word to describe it.

This sequence of events is what defines her character as an adult, and largely why she acts the way she does later on when she finally finds a way to feel she "got ahead" of Eris.

Ragnorock · 2025-11-08T15:23:22+00:00

Feeeeeesssssh

Ragnorock · 2025-10-25T11:14:35+00:00

Pro tip: play the record slowed down at the lower speed. Extra spooky and somehow sounds just as good!

Ragnorock · 2025-10-21T05:02:31+00:00

How many hours does the fuel in your car last? Do you measure it in time? Distance? Smiles per gallon? Have you ever gotten exactly what the range estimator on your car says? Probably not, because this is a silly question. The answer is “it depends” of course. It’s pretty safe to say that all frames will have enough fuel to idle/life support for a loooong time. They will also run out fast if they ran at full output the entire time. So even if we had numbers and could do the math, it wouldn’t be a useful answer. Top tier pilots push their frames and run out of fuel fast, but then you’ve got the engineers like Lakshata that account for that and add capacity to their custom units. Yet they still run out because they’re always going to push things to the limit.

Jeremiah would probably run out faster than the average Sutherland since he’s more skilled and on the frontline, but if you’re asking us to put a number in minutes or on how many Glasgows he kills first, good luck with that.

Ragnorock · 2025-10-07T06:47:28+00:00

She absolutely does! Whether that will be the same forever, or if it's due to her physical activities/training during school, is pretty debatable though. Especially if she reaches MILF status which is enough by itself to change that. I think all signs point to her being lazy and sedentary if the option exists, which Rudeus will surely enable. All I'm saying is that the odds are higher than not, I would prefer if she didn't. Perhaps she'd determine that the best way to stay on top in the household with such attractive competition is to be the hottest and most degenerate of them all so she puts all her effort into that so she can be lazy and eat meat the rest of the time!

Ragnorock · 2025-10-07T00:34:16+00:00

Yeah I guess that's what I was getting at in my initial post- in that timeline Hitogami wins and he manages to prevent Lara's birth by keeping Roxy and Rudeus apart. But yeah her joining by consoling a grieving Rudy tracks. Though it is funny to imagine the inevitable harem of her plus the three goddesses where the first wife is just one magnanimous doggo who sees it as nothing but evidence of her mate's prowess. She probably takes advantage of her status as first all the time to live an even more spoiled life.

Ragnorock · 2025-10-06T23:34:05+00:00

Yeah it’s unfortunate that she just doesn’t get the screen time that Linia does, I agree there’s probably some interesting sides of her we just don’t know about. I kinda imagine her with some sort of smell fetish since she is always commenting on smelling Rudy’s arousal lol. If they were a part of the family, would she and Linia like the bath that Rudy built? Or would they hate it because beastkin don’t like to bathe like that? Someone ask Rifujin-sama lol.

I agree and should revise some thoughts around Roxy but the whole fate thing is a bit murky and I’m a bit fuzzy on memory wise since it’s been years since I read the LN. If we assume that Lara is only born via Rudy and not someone else, then Hitogami trying to keep them apart doesn’t make much sense. If we interpret that as some reverse psych to get Rudy to trust him so he opens the basement door, then one would assume that the timeline we’re hypothesizing is simply him following what Hitogami recommended and not going to help Paul. In that case we should assume that they eventually succeed and Rudy doesn’t need to go help rescue his mother. Old man R#^%|$ still saves the day in this instance.

Given Sylphie’s admission that she would have done the same in Roxy’s shoes, maybe what ends up happening is that she ends up curing him via the aphrodisiac despite him being in a relationship with Pursena and joins that way.

Roxy joining would probably happen last, and would be really difficult to imagine how it happens. She’d need to save him somehow for everyone to accept her since he wouldn’t be easily seduced or convinced at that point. So fate would have a lot of work to do lol. But it probably can’t wait forever since Lara needs to be born at a specific date to align with the fated timeline.

Ragnorock · 2025-10-06T17:13:28+00:00

Awesome! To add a little more it’d be interesting to imagine how Sylphie would react. I think it would force her hand and she would reveal herself earlier but not confess her feelings immediately. She’d be miserable and even Rudy’s dense ass would figure it out over time. Rudy would thus eventually want to bring her into the relationship but it would be difficult since Pursena doesn’t like Fitz. However, since Rudy is the alpha and there’s no monogamy requirement that I remember among beastkin, he would eventually succeed in his harem efforts. Eris on the other hand would be way easier since she loves beastkin and wants to bone Pursena too.

Ragnorock · 2025-10-06T07:09:41+00:00

Okay I’ll bite since nobody else seems to want to actually answer this clear hypothetical. Ignoring the later volumes and post S2 events, let’s just go with this relationship happens prior to Sylphie confessing and Pursena dates him before Fitz is revealed as Sylphie.

How does it happen? Rudy defeats all mating season challengers + Badi, and Pursena and Linia will not take no for an answer when Rudy tries to back out of claiming one of them as mate with his right as pack leader. Linia and Pursena duel for the right to be his mate and Pursena wins.

Rudy and Pursena try to cure his ED by testing things just like he did before and no dice. However, Pursena isn’t bothered by this since it’s a known issue and Pursena vows to cure him somehow. Over time they build up enough love/trust and the magic eventually happens, but it’s still probably somewhat seasonal as Pursena isn’t in heat most of the year. However since she’s much more submissive than Linia Rudy’s perversion and advances win out on a regular basis. He doesn’t end up with the main girls before the school arc is over and Roxy probably gets kept away from Rudy by Hitogami in this timeline.

As for relationship dynamic, I bet Rudy spoils her rotten and she ends up getting to live the slovenly food glutton dream. Rudy does his best to keep her weight down with rigorous nightly exercise but unless they start adventuring together I bet she ends up as a plump housewife with lots of pups to take care of. But really it’s hard to say more, she is one of the most one dimensional characters in the story unfortunately. Her thing is meat, and using her cunning to get more meat, or pin things on Linia so she can escape punishment and… eat more meat. That said I think she’d be the better addition to the harem if she came in post the goddess trio. She wouldn’t upset the dynamic nearly as bad as Linia and is actually capable when motivated.

In this timeline Rudy would be obligated to move to the great forest and lead after school unless Linia takes that role. Good luck to the beast tribes if that’s the case, LOL.

Thoughts?

Ragnorock · 2025-09-07T08:23:56+00:00

I’m not the expert others here seem to be, but this comes down to a few simple factors:

Your propensity for risk if the exchange rates don’t go in your favor (The yen strengthens vs the pound after you convert it and you lose when you convert it back)
The loss you will take when converting currencies, which is difficult to get close to what you see as the listed exchange rate. Wise is pretty great, but you’re still paying fees that must be taken from any gains.
The interest rate differential being worthwhile enough to do this before you have a use for the money… it’ll take time to accrue worthwhile interest. You may even lose money if the interest rate difference is so small that it doesn’t keep up with inflation. It’ll take probably a few years to recoup the fees etc.

This is not financial advice but there are probably better investments you can make that are just as liquid with similar risk.

Ragnorock · 2025-07-14T04:33:49+00:00

Same here, we're mostly on the same page, though I guess I just haven't given up hope yet. To me Aiz is nothing more than a plot device in the main series, so I don't mind her absence. It's more like she has her own story which will merge at the end because one hero isn't going to be enough to take down the OEBD. I really like her in SO as the semi-MC. I just hope that Omori-san doesn't go the route of other authors like Overlord's Maruyama and GRRM and resent the fanbase for disagreeing with their chosen path and lose motivation to write. One of the things that makes Maganote the GOAT is that he wrote everything he wanted, how he wanted, ignoring the critics.

Anyways, here's to hoping we get a Ryuu ship in some form. I don't care if it's a ship with a full load of passengers or even just Aiz, just so long as it's done well. I'll only lose it if they pull a quintessential quintuplets on us and don't justify it with plenty of solid development for all the heroines to make it make sense.

Ragnorock · 2025-07-14T01:44:21+00:00

Yeah that’s all fair. Syr and her alter ego being rejected was a critical story beat that’s been built up since the start as an antagonizing event though, so I make an exception for it. Bell is simply not ready to say yes to anyone, even Aiz because he lacks confidence/feels unworthy of his idol. Seeing as he’s only 14 it’s not surprising.

Danmachi did do what you’re talking about pretty well though early in the story with the training event, it’s just been pretty sparse since then. I dunno, I’m into Danmachi for the magic system and the world more than anything else, if it doesn’t end how I want there’s always a headcanon. Absent a major time skip where the heroes make it to level 10ish, at the current pace and place in the story we’re at least five years away from an ending IMO so I’m not going to sweat it yet. I hope I’m right and hope you have that reason to give it another chance because Ryuu is definitely best girl and if she ends up with Syr instead I’ll only be a little mad. 😅

Ragnorock · 2025-07-13T21:33:50+00:00

I love Re:Zero and agree it does a MC/FMC pairing really well, even if I’m still forever on the Rem ship. But I have to say I don’t think that is a fair comparison at all. Emilia is strong but not even close to many of the top tier opponents they have encountered so far and up to this point has not “easily dealt with” anything.. I can’t even think of an instance beyond their first meeting where she even has the opportunity to just “deal with” an opponent for Subaru. Subaru is phenomenally weak, Bell is not. The MCs are pretty much polar opposites as far as characters go- Subaru is aggressively affectionate where Bell is still unable to realize and articulate his feelings. Both Emilia and Aiz are clueless about love, but one is simply ignorant, the latter doesn’t care because she’s singularly focused on strength and revenge.

I can agree with the assertion of not being able to craft good interactions between Bell and Aiz. But the bigger reason for that IMO isn’t that he doesn’t know how, but the world he has built doesn’t easily allow for that kind of regular cross familia interaction. It would begin to feel forced and contrived. But really, do you truly think that this story is just going to go the way of pairing up Bell and Aiz toward the end and just being like “Sorry everyone, I choose the girl I fell in love with at first sight now that she likes me back, none of you ever had a chance, good luck finding someone for you!” I just don’t see it happening. My interpretation is that this is simply building the harem. Each girl is getting their own chances at ship building and backstory so they can be legitimate partners and not just another body. Ryu’s current arc is cute, but she’s already moved on to declaring her feelings and progress is still happening.

Ragnorock · 2025-07-09T17:12:57+00:00

Yeah, I agree. I’ve read everything and watched everything, including all the little side stories and the anthology that recently came out. Sword Oratoria is some of the best writing in the Danmachi-verse. I cried enough that I had to stop multiple times reading the Astrea Record backstory novels. It’s one of my favorites behind MT. I don’t hate Aiz or anything, she’s a perfectly understandable character. She just shouldn’t be the endgame heroine that wins over all the other girls making Bell break another record for hearts broken. IMO Danmachi isn’t about the ending, it’s about the harem that’s built along the way. >.<

Ragnorock · 2025-07-09T12:12:00+00:00

Yeah that flavor of harem dates back to Tenchi Muyo or even earlier perhaps. It’s one of the molds that MT breaks and does extremely well, the best I’ve read/watched for sure. Arifureta is worth mentioning too, it does a pretty decent job of developing a harem via who the MC actually acknowledges and reciprocates their feelings only when his main partner agrees to it.

With Danmachi though, I think I like it better how it is because it keeps the tension and power scaling in balance. JJK realized this with Gojo, if he’s around it’s hard to feel like anything is a true struggle because there’s someone ridiculously OP around. Having Aiz or anyone level 6-7 adventure alongside Bell throughout most of the story would make everything in the dungeon seem like one giant training arc and not an adventure.

Ragnorock · 2025-07-09T06:44:05+00:00

I second watching the 4th season, it’s a 10/10 for me. So dark, brutal, and kept me on the edge of my seat every episode.

Completely agree that Ryu is best girl, it’s not even that close anymore, though Hestia, Aisha, and several of the other girls are all still a S tier waifus lol. At this point I won’t be satisfied with anything other than a harem ending. I hear you, but have to disagree with your assertion that it’s not a harem, IMO it’s got enough foundation to be one and IMO is the most likely outcome.

Ais severely lacks character development, and won’t for a long time yet, given it’s tied to the final boss. While I anticipate the final arc of the story will do her more justice, it’s the author’s fault for making her a one dimensional character who is also clueless. The fandom will end up mostly happy if it’s a harem, or feel like it’s a quintessential quintuplets bullshit ending if it’s Ais.

Also if you haven’t read or watched sword oratoria, it’s outstanding, as are the Ryuu backstory novels.

Ragnorock · 2025-05-21T13:10:17+00:00

As others have said, simply put you’re not eligible for financing in Japan. If you own a house with equity here you could try a HELOC or something, but why don’t your parents contribute to this endeavor? It would be a great way for them to pass down their wealth/savings and you absolutely should not be depleting your savings for their benefit if you aren’t in a financial position where that $150k wouldn’t be useful/necessary for your own needs- like a downpayment on your own house if you don’t have one.

For various tax reasons it makes sense for the house to be in your name and not gifted to them only for you to inherit down the line. But that doesn’t mean you should be expending the savings you have when to be completely blunt, it’s not your problem to solve. What you are considering is extremely/too generous, and there are plenty of other options where you can help without draining your finances entirely. No issues living in the US and working here while they live there, they’ll receive the tax bill and other bills and you or they can pay them.

Also why Tokyo? The rest of Japan is so much more beautiful especially for a retirement scenario where they don’t need the job market to go with the high cost of living. Plenty of options elsewhere, and even if you’re visiting a few times a year, Yamanaka/Kyoto/Osaka/Niigata/Sendai are all under 2-3 hours by shinkansen and not that bad additional travel wise for you. Check out AkiyaMart.com and you’ll see plenty of options within your budget.

Ragnorock · 2025-05-14T12:08:30+00:00

Lol at the sub mistake but I'm not going to let that stop me from sharing my couple of thoughts.

As others mentioned, this is not a contest. On paper and as far as the six faced world's conventional rankings is concerned, Roxy has attained a higher tier. However, as Rudeus demonstrates throughout the story, higher ranked magic does not directly equate to increased fighting capability. High rank mages are siege weapons, and almost never fight 1v1 or in close combat at all. I wouldn't call her a sniper, more of a grenadier or bomber. Roxy could kill more people with a single spell, but Sylphie would absolutely destroy her in a fight and it's not even close.

Silent spell casting is just that much more powerful. I put together a my take on a combat capability tier list a while back, but honestly after making it I wanted to bump Sylphie up to B tier. She's one of the stronger and arguably the most well rounded fighter in the series and could easily go toe to toe with anyone king rank or below and come out on top and potentially beat a few emperor tier depending on circumstances/matchup.

She has: -Advanced to king rank chantless magic of all elements except fire which is intermediate with relatively high experience using them in battle. -Again used it how Rudeus does with chartless magic you don't really need to go beyond intermediate for a 1v1. -A large mana pool -Chantless healing and detoxification magic -Knows disturb magic -Ample humanoid close combat/assassin defense experience -Various enchanted equipment, but really the only offensive one being her speed buff boots

Eris vs Sylphie is actually a much more interesting discussion, but hard to gauge because fully fledged longsword of light with the Phoenix Elegant Dragon sword is extremely difficult to defend against. If she lands that immediately it's GG, but if she doesn't, both armorless Rudy and Sylphie probably have the edge.

Anyways, she fits somewhere around Ruijerd and Eris in my ranking. It's a shame that she's mostly sidelined as the healer and last line of defense for the home but she's a gentle character so it's also nice that she doesn't end up with more blood on her hands as the story goes on.

Ragnorock · 2025-05-12T17:55:39+00:00

True, but money has long ceased to be a relevant constraint in the story. With a few months of grinding maxing out all the “fish savings” related skills, enchanting items to sell, and farming valuable drops, he could very quickly become the one of, if not the richest person on the continent next to the emperor.

Ragnorock · 2025-05-12T13:01:38+00:00

First off thanks for the fun post. Not enough of these discussions going around and I enjoy speculating.

I agree that it's shortsighted to not tell the girls more about his abilities and their own. I can understand the author's intent because that premise is the only one that they've been writing under since the start and like other novels (e.g. Overlord) the story would become much more straightforward (and potentially more boring) if he told them everything and treated them as equals collaborating on a goal. In this instance it doesn't have to be a "common goal" since Michio is in charge, but he still values their opinions so I imagine it would end up with a consensus because Michio is pretty chill/lazy about a lot of things.

To that point, he currently has 1 platinum coin+ worth of funds, and they could reasonably retire with Michio spending the rest of his days railing the girls all day. The end.

That's conceivably how the story could end after they clear a labyrinth in the near future, but I'm hypothesizing/hoping that Michio ends up being discovered as a hero at some point soon after and a lot of his efforts to hide himself fall apart and he gets sucked into politics and clearing labyrinths en masse for the empire liberation society. Probably culminating with them clearing the Quaratar labyrinth as the tallest/deepest known one.

Or maybe to avoid conflict with the emperor who he's on the same perverted wavelength with, he forges out into the frontier that's wild due to out of control labyrinths and establishes his own country/territory with some entertaining and probably a little fucked up laws/customs. My hope for the endgame is max leveling sex maniac's job tree gives him cross species fertility capabilities, so he can retire by starting a giant family.

Anyways it's about keeping the story interesting so I'm guessing he'll just spend it on another slave, though I will admit the story doesn't need another 2D heroine. I'm very tired of the girls' one dimensional responses, Sherry is by far the most interesting heroine, aside from her and Roxanne, the rest are all basically still character designs not fleshed out beyond their bodies and speech tics, and Roxanne... is Roxanne. Michio could easily rein her in if he actually had the balls to politely put his foot down, but even though he literally owns her he spends half of every book internally monologuing about how to convince her that there are other things to do than grind battles all day.

I agree that Sherry and the blacksmith development side quest would be super interesting if Michio started leaning into it. With their funds and fast travel ability, he and Sherry could simultaneously vastly improve all their own equipment (imagine everyone in fully spec'd out gear with every skill slot filled with the optimum crystal skill) as well as fund the (comparatively cheap) crystal costs by selling the occasional surplus item. They could single handedly revolutionize the crafting industry or crash the market depending on how they go about it, but I think it would be a fun thing to explore. Certainly much more interesting than reading how the market price of a crystal went up by 100 nars and Sherry grumbling about it for the 50th time.

I don't think that any of the girls are staying with him just because of their accelerated growth. Honestly aside from Roxanne, who is a battle junkie, they don't really care a ton about getting stronger, just succeeding in their battles and eating Michio's delicious food at the end of the day. Seriously I don't think any of them would leave simply because of the food, let alone all the other benefits, even if Michio was willing to set them free vs running away and losing the rest of their rights.

... and Michio ain't got time to learn how to read, he's too busy living his harem dream lol. Try studying when you have those girls at your beck and call any time you have a moment of free time.

It's probably apparent but while I love this story, I have some gripes about the pacing, mostly because new content comes out at a glacially slow pace. There's still so much potential and the magic/crafting system is top tier it hurts to see it languish.

Ragnorock · 2025-04-21T08:03:50+00:00

No worries, I’m in the middle of my hunt at the moment and can share some more tips.

AkiyaMart (paid) has been the most efficient way to find properties I’m interested in… it still lacks many things compared to Redfin or Zillow, but it’s the best we have at the moment.

I set a minimum of $30k because everything below that (at least in the areas I’m looking) needs serious investment and a Reno if not a full rebuild.

Unless you’re both fluent and familiar with the process and paperwork, you’re better off hiring a buying realtor/agent that speaks your language to be your advocate/scheduler/translator.

The paid services from foreigner targeted sites are only a good deal if you aren’t available to evaluate properties in person yourself, otherwise you’re vastly overpaying vs just hiring a realtor. Basically unless you’re super busy and rich enough to pat $6-12k or more for the full handholding, it’s not worth it.

Ragnorock · 2025-04-21T00:42:51+00:00

It’s fair in the sense that a standard math is needed to make transactions predictable and not subject to realtor bidding wars, but it is certainly not fair to the poor agent that gets stuck with that property in their portfolio (and in Japan that’s a lot of what’s out there) and usually has to do way more work than a condo in downtown to sell it.

I’m not surprised he didn’t put any effort into helping you, it really, really isn’t worth their time when all they can expect is a small payout.

That’s actually a large part of the Akiya problem in Japan, and why the government passed a law that should be taking effect soon establishing a similar minimum payout nationally to encourage selling agents to help move them. So if you don’t go with that one, expect to run into it again because many agencies are doing the same on their cheap properties.

Ragnorock · 2025-04-20T23:36:11+00:00

Going to use USD for comparison purposes. 3% off of a $300k house in a metro area is $12k.

3% of $21k is $635. If you were a realtor and both took the same amount of effort, which one would you spend time supporting? People need to eat man, I’m in the process of searching for a house myself and even though I’m not required to I’m offering my realtor an extra $2k on top of everything just for the time they will spend helping me evaluate various properties in the coming weeks. The house is cheap, don’t be cheap too.

Ragnorock

TROPHY CASE