- Erik Buhrow bought a home in Japan for $26,000 while he was still living in the US.
- Buhrow, who grew up in Japan, plans to return at some point when his career is over.
- In the meantime, he plans to rent out his home to the Americans looking to move to Japan.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Erik Buhrow, who bought a house in Japan’s Niigata Prefecture through AkiyaMart, a site that helps foreigners buy abandoned Japanese homes known as akiyas. Buhrow, 39, runs a construction business outside Minneapolis.
A lot of people born and raised in Minnesota stay here forever. I’ve only been here about 10 years.
It can feel like anybody who has any sort of money bought a cabin in northern Minnesota back in the day — when you could. Now, if you want to buy a cabin up north, you’re spending $300,000 for a starter shack in the tundra.
Would I rather spend $300,000 on a cabin in northern Minnesota or $30,000 for a cabin in Japan — a country I’m from, I’m accustomed to, and I actually enjoy going to?
I purchased an akiya in Japan this year. I closed on it in July and I did everything remotely over the course of three months.
I did not visit Japan to see the house or do anything. I worked with a real-estate agent who went there and FaceTimed me. Because I’m in construction and I am used to Japan, I was like, “Yeah, I’m willing to pull the trigger without going there.”
It’s roughly 3,000 square feet and about 150 years old. The Japanese would classify it as eight bedrooms, but I would classify it as six. There are two extra rooms that they would consider bedrooms, but because of their lack of closets, I’m going to call them bonus rooms. There’s a two-car garage, one bathroom, and multiple really open living room spaces in an old-school style.
All in with the taxes and the real-estate fees and everything, it was $26,000.
A lot of people say, “The prices are really good, but the insurance and the taxes are going to get you.” They don’t. My insurance for $200,000 of replacement costs me a little under $500 a year. I actually bought five years’ worth of home insurance at once.
My taxes are $183 a year. In Japan, homes over 22 years old are depreciated, so that $183 is just on the land. There’s no tax on the house because it’s ancient.
I own my home in Burnsville, Minnesota. It’s very similar — 3,000 square feet, a garage. I bought it in 2017 for $300,000, and my taxes have gone — from 2017 to now — from $3,000 a year to about $5,000 a year.
I may be a little bit cavalier about the situation. I knew that no matter how bad the house is, it’s nothing that I haven’t seen. I just felt like, if I don’t go visit it, but it’s in the location that I want, that’s what real estate is about. That’s what these houses are really about. You can fix things, you can make the house better or worse, but you can’t move it.
I grew up in Japan and long to move back for retirement
I grew up in Japan, so it helped make the decision easier. I grew up on a US military base in Misawa, Japan, in the Aomori Prefecture. My mom was a government teacher, so I lived there for an extended amount of time.
I officially moved to the United States when I went to college. But when I grew up in Japan, I had a huge desire to own property there, but it was always seen as impossible. My mom, my sister, and my brother-in-law, who’s half Japanese, just always accepted it as something you can’t do — that it’s too complicated, or you have to get residency.
I reached out to AkiyaMart for a consultation. They pitched me on being the pilot person for their buyer program. I think it worked out perfectly.
My biggest aim was to be surrounded by the culture of Japan. I grew up on a military base, so I know what it’s like to be around foreigners in Japan. Tokyo and Osaka are very tourist-driven, and it can be really difficult to learn the language and truly learn the customs.
The Sea of Japan, or western, side of the country is known for not being very heavily touristed or westernized. The house I bought is on the southern portion of the Tohoku region of Japan. You still get snow, but the architecture as you get further south in Japan gets to be, in my opinion, more beautiful. You have tile roofs and things of that nature. If you go north, you get more flat metal roofs.
Because I’m in construction, I care about home design. So this was a beautiful in-between spot where I could enjoy a southern-style home, but in a snowy northern climate, and also still be close to Tokyo.
The closest city-slash-train stop for the bullet train is 20 minutes away. I can hop on the bullet train and be in Tokyo 90 minutes later.
The prices in that area are lower because it is more remote. It allows you to explore in this adventure of buying a foreign property without having to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars.
I plan to rent out my akiya to other Americans weighing moves to Japan
I’m also in the process of buying another akiya property two minutes down the street. The original premise to buy the second home is based on my sister and brother-in-law, who both grew up in Japan.
In the meantime, I’m hoping that I can turn the second home into a long-term-stay place. I can allow people thinking about doing the same thing that I’m doing to stay there one to three months while they try and figure out is this something that might be a fit for them.
Because people are curious and they’re interested in living in Japan, but they don’t know if it would work. Somebody could go, “Hey, Erik, I want to stay in your house for a month, use your car, use your Wi-Fi, and figure out if this area fits my goals.”
Or maybe my renters will want to work remotely in Japan for an extended amount of time.
My life goal would be to retire in Japan. However, because of visas and complications, it’s not that easy.
I look at buying the akiyas as a new adventure in life, a new chapter. If you’re not continuing to write new chapters in your book, then it gets kind of boring to read.
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