How I ended up buying land in “rural” Japan

I now own some land in Nikko, Tochigi. Here's the story of how it came about.

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[LifeWhereImFrom]

This is a kind of part 1 of the whole journey. I honestly hesitated a bit about making videos about this since it seems kind of cliche to make videos about buying property in Japan. I think there's some interesting videos that can be made that are related to the topic, such as why there are so many unoccupied homes yet there's very little for sale or what it's like working with an architect. If there are any things you want to know about, I may be able to cover them in future videos. All the best - Greg

[palalabu]

your kids are gonna be in uni in 3-5 years???? 😲 how long have I been following this channel? lol

[AbroadinJapan]

Congrats man! You chose a beautiful area!

[BrianSmith-gpxr]

I aquired a home in Rural Japan village of nine. Where I learned what being a good person truly is and community living is the norm. By repairing an od home I learned skills and met people in a way an apartment dweller never could. The old timers appreciate my efforts to restore a mud walled warehouse . They gave advice and ingredients. They stop by and tell me stories of long ago. "My mother lived in that house.." ."My Father was born in that house" I left a million dollar home to live in a hundred year old house.I had to repair. Best decision I ever made.

[zzrhardy]

A wall of "sorry, it just sold" can also be a more polite way to say the owners won't sell to outsiders. In places where family and neighbourly roots go back generations, purely "open" or "blind" sales are not always on the table.

[jasonscottstone]

Congratulations Greg! This looks like a great project! The bottom levels can be used for gardens. I'd love it visit in 2025 to see what you build!

[chimingchiu]

We visited NIKKO earlier this month and found it a charming little town. We actually bought our groceries at LION DOR, the supermarket appeared in your video. Everything was so close to each other and you really don't need a car. Good luck in building your home and good luck in your next move.

[correykeen]

My wife and I had similar experience while we were looking for a house. We were at a house with the realtor and discussing making an offer when the realtor got a phone call from a couple that viewed the property earlier that day that made an offer for the asking price. I never made an offer for asking price and no one seemed offended by it. It took us 6 months to find a suitable place in the country, surrounded by mountains and right next to the Iruma river. We got it for 5 million yen less than asking, which is close to what I estimated renovations to cost. The house was a little over 40 years old, but a light steal frame Panasonic home. The main interior renovations took a little under 2 months, and there have been several other projects like painting, roof, and windows that we had done after we moved in. Moving to the countryside has been the best thing we've done.

[mfaizsyahmi]

For this one episode, LWIF stands for Land Where I'm From.

[AnomieTrain]

When I saw the picture right at the beginning of the video, I thought, "Greg, that's a parking lot." Good to know that you can build a house on it!

[elliseuji]

i totally understand wanting to give us all the details about your new plot of land but i would be so nervous essentially giving the internet my exact address!! 😅congratulations on this big decision and stay safe ❤

[therelaxeffectrelaxingsoun]

I loved this video. With your storytelling this was more than just a "property buying in Japan" video. This explained the culture and unique rules in Japan, your experience, and most importantly, I enjoyed the sense of being on this journey with you! I love your videos, looking forward to the next videos in the series. Would love to see you redoing old videos now with your kids, such as what having breakfast and dinner is like with them :)

[ditodoonstudio]

Congratulations Greg! hoping the best for you and the fam!!! please keep sharing your journey! I love Nikko !

[ollie]

I don't care how "cliche" it is, i love watching old japanese home reconstructions. They're so pretty and seeing them refurbished is really nice.

[ericcousino]

I would be interested in seeing the journey you take in building this.

[jameshansenbc]

Great illustration of how great high speed / regional rail connections can make moving to a smaller city or town much more viable, as you can still get to the city with ease when you need to, reducing the pressure on housing supply in the city. But yes, congratulations on this, looks like it will be a really rewarding project!

[urouroniwa]

Congrats! My wife grew up in Nikko (her father worked in the shrine). It's an amazing area. The fact that it's a tourist location helps a *lot* for maintaining the viability of shops, restaurants and train lines. I live in rural Shizuoka in a very similar sized town and similar situation (minus the tourist trade). The fact that you are on the train line is massive. Previously I lived in a town away from the train and life is just much more difficult. Even if I wanted to buy clothes I would have to plan out an entire day because there were no men's clothing stores within a 2 hour one way journey.

Anyway, I pretty much guarantee that you will enjoy living there. The one piece of advice I would give is that when you actually move there (or even potentially before that), try to spend as much time as you can meeting locals. We moved to this town about 4 years ago and it took probably the first 3 years for locals to get used to me living here. In the inaka, almost everybody is retired. Going for walks in the neighbourhood and actively chatting to people is really important to help them understand that you own property and will be staying (potentially) for good. Inaka life is different than city life in that being part of the community is really important. Attending the festivals, doing your bit in community activities, etc, etc ensures that people feel they can rely on you and that you are worth investing time and attention on. It can be lonely if you don't because everybody knows everybody else and it's hard to be the one left out. You may find it difficult to transition from running the minpaku to residing in the area, because people will get used to the minpaku housing short term guests. Just make sure to walk around the area frequently and turn down no opportunity to greet people and chat if they seem keen.

[GuilleGarciaAlfonsin]

So you are now very close to the famous Nikko Circuit, less than 20 minutes!! Congrats 🎉

[slymaverick]

Congratulations! My wife and I moved back to Japan in 2019 and are now looking into property, as well. Nice to have a fellow Best Coaster continue to build a nice life in Japan. Always enjoy all of your work - thank you for sharing these great stories.

[mohd]

You should definitely make a series for this