Hi! from Kansai, Japan

[Jasmine Bu]

Hi,

We've uprooted ourselves from down under Australia and plonked ourselves smack in the unlikeliest of places, Japan, at a 360 degree cultural turnaround.

We arrived two months ago and have survived in a country that speaks extremely limited English and has rigid societal and cultural norms. But all those cultural restrictions is more than offset by a tradition of honesty and integrity, especially in business.

Thanks to our badly broken Japanese, communication in daily life is scattered with many amusing interactions. Google translator and our ability to read and write Kanji, recognize Hiragana, has helped us break through the communication gaps.

We visited Japan just last year and fell in love with the country, the culture, and the glorious food. It was in February that we decided to make the move and we are now here! It's been a fun ride so far and there have been hiccups along the journey. 

There are many property deals that are very affordable and you do have to build up your Japanese network (it's not impossible, you just need blindingly strong faith in yourself!) in order to gain trust and assistance from the Japanese to help you. But the profits are here at double-digit percentages, for the crazy and brave.

I have read many inspiring stories here and have always come away positively motivated. I hope we can also share the joys and tears of our journey here.

Jasmine

[Daniel Ryu]

@Jasmine Bu

Congrats on the big move. I wish you the best of luck.

I help organize a Real Estate Investing Meetup out here in Seoul, South Korea.

We have meetups once a month and we LIVE broadcast our last one on Periscope.

I've connected with a few Tokyo BP members through the site. 

Here's a link to the thread if you want to connect with other Tokyo investors:

https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/76/topics/204...

This weekend we had BP Blogger and Creative Finance Investors Ben Leybovich as our guest speaker. 

Our group members are both focused on in Korea investing and the US as well (as well as other parts of the world). We have a few US investors out here in Korea investing using 'key money' or 'deposit' money. It's a unique strategy in Korea whereby tenants pay a huge deposit instead of monthly rent. The deposit has to be returned at the end of the contract. But that key money can be applied to the purchase price of a piece of property - so you're basically getting a secured loan from a tenant to buy property. One of the interesting quirks of Korea real estate investing.

That's interesting info to hear about Kyoto and the Japanese market.

Here's a link to a video of our last Meetup:

http://katch.me/seoulreimeetup/v/3fb8deb1-2160-349...

If you're ever visiting Korea, feel free to reach out. It's nice to connect with other BP investors out here in Asia.